I took a silent retreat at the end of last week.
On Thursday I traveled an hour up I-77 to Well of Mercy, a retreat center founded by the Sisters of Mercy that is nestled amid the farmland and fields north of Statesville.
I was there for a three-day retreat called “Soaking in Silence”. The premise was simple: three days in silence and community with a little guidance from a spiritual director and no intention other than to rest in the silent Presence of God.
I always come to a retreat with an agenda. What I want to accomplish, what I want to read, what I want to write. This has been a pattern for a long time in my spiritual life. An early spiritual director and monk of SSJE once reminded me before a silent retreat in seminary that “it is a retreat not an advance”.
This retreat was true to form. Luckily, I am aware of this pattern enough to change course quickly. I gave up the dreams of writing a thousand poems or planning out my priorities for the coming months. Instead, I rested. I found a book on sabbath in the library. I wandered the muddy trails. I walked the labyrinth. I slept.
On the desk in my room, there was a little journal full of notes from previous retreatants. On the last morning, I wrote the blessing/poem/prayer that is this week’s entry in the Psalter.
I did not plan this retreat with Lent in mind. It just so happened to fall the weekend before Ash Wednesday but it was great preparation for this season of repentance and preparation.
When I was younger I took on Lent with fervor and zeal. “This will be the Lent when I finally overcome that bad habit! This will be the Lent when I root myself in a consistent prayer habit!”
I remember one Lent as a high schooler when a youth pastor reframed the season as “The 40-day Challenge” complete with bracelets and branded stickers.
Beginning this Lent with a silent retreat was a helpful (if unintentional) way to come back to the truth that our faith is not a “challenge” or a self-improvement scheme. Will it be challenging sometimes? Sure. Will you improve over your life of faith? Perhaps.
But Lent is a time to prepare our hearts for the celebration of Easter. It is a time to come home to ourselves and home to God who stands like the father in the story of the prodigal son waiting for us to return.
Lent can be a time to reset and rest in the grace of God.
That was my takeaway from last week’s retreat: the fundamental need to rest in God; to give up the frenetic striving that has come to mark so much of 21st-century life; to start from a foundation of loving awareness of God’s Presence.
What would it look like to take Lent as a retreat? What would open up for you if Lent were not a “challenge” or season to strive more but was a designated time to say ‘no’ more and rest in the goodness of God?
This week’s poem is my prayer this Lent that was spoken out of the silence of my retreat.
If you feel so moved, add your thoughts in the comments so we can all support each other this Lenten season.
23. Glory to You, Lord God Glory to You, Lord God, for the spark of life that alights my gray matter and illumines the dark chambers of my heart. Glory to You for saving me. Glory to You for the fact and grace of my existence. May I be aware of that grace. May I rest in gratitude. May I take my hand from the plow just long enough to bow before the sheer wonder of everything, the surprise of anything, the awe of this one thing: your love for the dust of me. Glory to You who are higher than the heavens yet sit in the silence between my breaths. GIory to You. GIory! Amen.