Retreat

We held our annual retreat Saturday, in the same location as last year. I confess that I did not want to go, having returned home late Wednesday evening from two weeks travel with much work to be done (I thought I was five minutes from finishing a conference powerpoint when I did leave -- it turned out to require two more hours' work). But I am glad I did.

I found slowing down to be very difficult, and maybe it wasn't just me because Fr. McGrath apologized in one of his remarks about the morning being harried. In fact, thinking back on it, a lot of us were hurried and harried yesterday. The rest of my household arrived late and had to leave early for a musical performance up north. It was enlightening, though, to have my wife arrive in the middle of Matins in a "state," insisting on a seat behind us as a self-imposed penance whereas we were just glad she had arrived and wanted her seated right with us. Is this how arrival in Heaven will be?

But the silent times helped. And the booklet "The Fruits of the Spirit", a collection of writings by Evelyn Underhill, provided much on which to meditate. Although, while reading it I suddenly felt guilty for having one of my better cameras with me -- I had not, as she noted in the first reading "Alone With God," gone into the closet with God and "Shut the door."

This may be why I came away with far fewer pictures than usual (this one shows Ranjit meditating, while a ferry passes in the distance).