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Going on Retreat

Going on Retreat

Last updated on: November 21, 2014 at 7:30 am by Vance Morgan

Going on Retreat 2014-11-21T07:30:28-04:00 Vance Morgan

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I begin with a confession. As recently as a week ago in a Facebook posting I have been telling people all semester that in the middle of November I was going to be away for four days at a conference (I might have called it a “workshop” once or twice). I put up an “away” message on Outlook announcing my absence for four days from the administrative saddle because of travelling to a conference, let my “inner circle” blog circulation list know that they would have to do something other than wait expectantly for my usual 7:30 AM Friday blog post on a particular upcoming Friday, arranged for my teaching teammates to cover the Friday afternoon seminar on the Aeneid that I would be missing, and generally covered my academic ass. No biggie—everyone know that giving papers at a conference is part of the academic life that requires rearranging classes and office hours on occasion.

Except that I was not giving a paper. I wasn’t even going to a conference. I was going to a retreat, which in most corners of academia is tantamount to going to a 60s love-in. The name of the retreat, located at the Episcopal House of Prayer on the campus occupied by my beloved Saint John’s Abbey run by the Benedictines in the middle of Minnesota, was “Prayer in the Cave of the Heart,” led by a Benedictine monk who is the prior of a hermitage in Big Sur that I spent a week at a year and a half ago. It’s a good thing that I have not needed tenure or promotion points for a while now, because participation in such an event would have carried negative academic weight. The value of going to such a retreat in the middle of the semester in the eyes of the Committee on Academic Rank and Tenure on our campus would be similar to what the Psalmist says about the ungodly: “Placed in the scales, they rise.” The fact that I perceived several months ago that this retreat at this point in the semester would be good for my soul would be irrelevant to CART—“But will this produce a peer-reviewed article? Probably not? No tenure or promotion for you!” Too bad, CART. I’ve been around long enough to have been on that committee myself for a couple of years, convincing myself every Friday afternoon that I was qualified to mess with other people’s lives. If I determine that a trip to the middle-of-nowhere Minnesota is what is needed to keep my spirit, soul and body centered and willing to inhabit the same room, you can’t do anything about it.

Human beings are funny creatures; human beings on retreat are even funnier. The average age of the twenty-four people gathered at this one was probably a bit over my fifty-eight years, with women outnumbering men two to one. The women all looked alike—tall, thin, wearing glasses, with approximately the same short haircut (with the exception of one woman with a long braid who looked like a refugee from the Sixties and who was the only person of either gender attending with hair longer than mine). Turns out that four or five of them were ordained Episcopal clergy from the Diocese of North Dakota. The guys were a bit more variant in appearance, beardless and bearded, bald and haired, thin and not so thin, including one heavyset guy who fell asleep during meditation in the oratory and snored really loudly. Twice. Everyone on retreat walks the same way, with a slow and intentionally reverent gait that actually looks a bit like how zombies walk when they are staggering toward you in the movies. Everyone and everything slows down at a retreat, at least at the ones I go to, which is a good thing.

Just as the other two times I have attended retreats at this establishment, silence was observed from the conclusion of evening prayer around 9:00 until the end of lunch the next day, the only exceptions being when were in teaching sessions with whoever is running the retreat. In these sessions we were allowed to ask questions, but only if they were good ones. I love silence. Silence is good. But not when packed into a small dining room for breakfast and lunch seated six to a circular table, for breakfast and lunch during what is quaintly called “the Great Silence.” The sounds of people chewing their food while uncomfortably looking anywhere but at each other may be an important part of some people’s spiritual practice, but it doesn’t do anything for me. There is no one more introverted than I am, but even I breathed a sigh of relief when lunch ended and we all were allowed to speak for the next nine hours or so.

Other than the leader of the retreat, who came from California, I was the person who travelled the farthest. My flights were such that I was the first arrival early on Thursday afternoon, a few hours before the retreat officially began at dinner. After touching base with Ward, the director of the retreat house who is a friend (largely because between us Jeanne and I have been to five retreats at this place over the past five years) and moving my stuff into my room, I went into the beautiful large living room area with a glass wall overlooking the adjacent forest, made a cup of tea, and sat down to read Anne Lamott’s latest book. TEA?? Since when did I start drinking tea?? As I have discussed in the past, I have been a dedicated coffee drinker (more like a coffee swiller) since my teenage years.

Saint Keurig

Jeanne was a tea drinker when we met years ago and still drinks tea on occasion as well as coffee, but not me. Tea is for pussies. Who can be bothered with the precious seconds wasted with opening the tea bag envelope, waiting for the tea to steep in hot water for an interminable minute or so, then figuring out how to drink it with a tea bag floating in it? By the time all that happens I will have swilled a paper cup of coffee, black since I can’t spare the time to add cream and sugar, and be back to the important business of whatever I’m doing—since everything I do is obviously important business. I don’t drink tea.

Except on retreat. I said earlier that human beings on retreat are funny creatures—I am no exception. Making myself tea instead of coffee for my first of many hot drinks over the four-day retreat was not a conscious decision—I didn’t even notice I had done it until I sat down to read. But my body knew something my mind didn’t know. Going from an 80-100 hour week of work to a four-day retreat is not as easy as flipping a switch. Slowing down, mindfulness, deliberation and attentiveness—all those good things that I’ve begun to incorporate into my life but that slip through my fingers easily when swamped by real life—need practice. And taking the time to make a cup of tea (which I actually really like the taste of) rather than throwing another several ounces of coffee down my pie hole was a good place to start. Take the time to pay attention to what you are doing, do each thing as it comes, and wait to see what comes next. Do what you are doing and be where you are. I know this. Sometimes I even do it. But a retreat is an opportunity to drop fully into that space that I’ve been skimming over or dodging around for weeks. And to notice that it’s always there waiting—my deepest (and best) me.

I was even thinking that I should start drinking tea at work. Until I remembered that thanks to Saint Keurig I can now make a cup of tea as quickly and mindlessly as a cup of coffee. I don’t even need a tea bag. Oh well.

Collegeville Institute

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