Well, I did it. I am happy to say I did my retreat at Gethsemani and didn't run off screaming in the night. I'll have more observations on this, but here are some initial ones.
First, silence. Gethsemani is a pretty silent place. Actually, it's not as quiet as it once was. In the past the Trappists were almost forbidden to speak to one another unless they absolutely had to. In recent years this has loosened up. There was usually a monk at the front desk who did speak to people, but, frankly, they weren't always easy to engage in conversation. Most anyway.
I had a delightful conversation with one of the monks. He's obviously quite extraverted ENFP, for those who know what I'm referring to.
The silence is interesting as you are with a group of people and you don't know anything about them and never even learn each the names of the people there with you. We ate in silence and did virtually everything in silence. There were small snippets of conversation but nothing sustained. The silence does, on some level, force you to listen to the quiet. So, most interesting.
2 comments:
Welcome back.
Hope that I did not scare you by showing up on your blog. Coming back from all that quiet and finding out that Iamhoosier has found his way here. I promise to be good. On second thought, I promise to TRY and be good. Forgot who I was talking to.(smile)
Mark
Your journey sounds like a great one. Although I do enjoy being around people, I also find myself needing times of silence and solitude. I think that I would really enjoy being able to spend a week like you just did.
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