Shhhhhh....

For the past 10 years Hubby Tony has attended a silent retreat. He has encouraged me to go on one, but I did one in 2008 and had no desire to attend a second. Then a woman from my church invited me as part of a group from the parish and I accepted. My four-day retreat at the White House Retreat Center started on Thursday night and ended on Sunday after lunch. The time was a great experience.

White House opened more than a century ago and sits on a bluff above the Mississippi River. The grounds are serene and beautiful, with mature trees, naturalized areas, formal, and informal flower beds. My room was on the second floor of the largest building with a nice view of the river.

The event started with dinner on Thursday, a chance to get to know the people sitting at my table. That was a good thing, because after that meal the rest of the weekend was silent until lunch on Sunday (unless you chose to attend a half-hour fellowship gathering on Friday and Saturday night). Meal times were accompanied by gentile piped-in music. I put my phone on airplane mode and used it only for a watch and to make sure I got my steps for the day. A couple of times I was tempted to take a photo of something I saw, but decided to use my mind's eye instead.

The program was based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Over the course of the weekend the retreat director, a Jesuit priest, led ten conferences (talks), with a period of meditation after each. Each day also included an opportunity to participate in Catholic observances and Mass.

My days quickly fell into a pattern, starting with getting up early each morning to walk around the grounds before the day got too hot, then coming back to my room to get ready for the activity-filled day. There were a multitude of places both inside and outside to sit to pray and meditate and I soon found my favorites, but on Sunday morning when I found a new-to-me chair overlooking the river I suspected there were even more.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was being part of Nature I started to notice little details. Like the sun coming up over the river in the morning, the boats floating downstream or being pushed upstream, the deer I surprised on my walks, the places where those deer had nibbled some of the plants into stubs, the hundreds of bees, butterflies, and a couple of hummingbirds flying around the flower beds, the background drone of the crickets and cicadas, the spider webs stretching from one plant to another along a trail, and the fat Monarch butterfly caterpillars munching on the milkweed leaves.

I felt myself slowing down and getting less distracted. More importantly, over the course of the weekend I learned some important things about myself and was sad when it was time to leave. On the drive out of the parking lot I realized the car radio was making too much noise, turned it off, and enjoyed the rest of the drive home in silence.

Five years ago: Fermented Spicy Goodness