Retreat

Bo Caldwell

In June of 1995, as my job for the past three years was coming to an end, and three days after my kids' last day of school, I went on a silent retreat at a Franciscan retreat center. This wasn't anything I'd ever done before; the closest I'd come was church camps growing up, which were more boisterous romps than silent retreats. The retreat would be for five days-from dinner on Monday until mid-morning Friday-and it was intended "for those who wish to go deeper into their prayer life and feel comfortable with silence."

Going deeper into a prayer life sounded all right, and though I knew I wasn't someone who was comfortable with silence, it seemed like a good thing to do. I was at a difficult place in my life: my lectureship was ending, money was tight, I was recently divorced, and the small cottage I'd rented for my two kids and myself for the previous two years-since I'd separated-was very possibly going to be bulldozed in the near future. As a free-lance writer single mother of two and the owner of a large untrained Labrador retriever, I suspected I wasn't what most landlords would call an ideal renter. Everything felt uncertain, and I thought maybe some silence would help. What I hoped for was clarity and some answers to the question, What do I do now? If I could just get away and think, maybe things would become clear.

And so I arranged for my kids to be with my parents for the week, and when I arrived at the retreat center at four o'clock on that Monday afternoon, I felt hopeful, even cheery: five days of tranquility couldn't hurt, right? At the desk, a woman handed me a folder and a name tag and a key to my room, and she smiled at me kindly but knowingly, as though she knew something I didn't. Then she said the opening meeting was at five forty-five and sent me down the hallway, and I felt as though I were checking into an emotional spa. Fix me up, I was thinking, a sort of Jiffy Lube for my soul.

Down the hall past doors that said Sr. Mary Lou Carlson, Office, Fr. Rusty Shaughnessy-below Father Shaughnessy's nameplate was a sign that said, "Celibacy is not hereditary"-then around the corner and halfway down that hall, and I found number twelve, a small room with twin beds, a sink and mirror, and a desk. The very sparseness of the room gave me hope, as did the grounds that my window overlooked: roses in the courtyard, shade trees, low buildings painted white, tiled corridors. Maybe by the end of the week my mind would resemble this place: tranquil, orderly, a place where you could get your bearings.

In my blue folder was a schedule for the next four days:

Monday:

5:45 Welcome; introduction
6:00 Dinner
8:00 Opening conference

Tuesday thru Thursday:

8:00 Breakfast
9:00 Morning prayer / Meditation
9:30 Morning conference
12:00 Lunch
Afternoon activities for those who wish:
2:15-2:45 Anthony De Mello video on meditation
3:00-4:15 Tai Chi
Massage therapist available by appointment
5:00 Eucharist
6:00 Dinner
7:30 Evening conference / night prayer

Friday:

8:00 Breakfast
9:00 Morning prayer / meditation
9:30 Eucharist and departure

It somehow wasn't at all what I expected, but no matter. It was 5:45, and time to begin.

At the door of the conference room are two Franciscans in their brown robes. Both look young, probably too young to be of much help, I think; they must be assistants, probably here to pass out papers or ring bells or something, and I nod politely and sit down. There are perhaps thirty of us, mostly women, mostly over forty, and I find my co-retreatants pretty uninteresting. We obviously have nothing in common; I'm doubtful that they have real problems like I do. They're all so ordinary looking, all shapes and sizes, including a man in front of me and to the left who reminds me of my former husband. I find his presence irritating; I had no intention of thinking about him, or about my failed marriage, during this week. So I do my best to ignore him and concentrate instead on two nuns. They are both small, under five feet, and over their habits they wear maroon nylon windbreakers that say on the back, in large white block letters, INCARNATE WORD. I take their presence as confirmation that I've chosen well, a sign that at least the week will be substantive, not some touchy-feely thing.

Then a woman who reminds me vaguely of a favorite aunt, comforting and solid and mid-western, stands and introduces herself as Sister Mary Lou Carlson, one of the members of the retreat team. She introduces the other two members of the team as well: Father Rusty Shaughnessy is the director of the retreat center, and Brother Rufino Zaragoza will be helping us with music. I'm skeptical: Father Rusty and Brother Rufino are, of course, the two Franciscans who were at the door, and they're in charge here? Father Rusty looks like a surfer-tousled reddish blonde hair that has that did-you-see-that-last wave? look. Freckles. Blue eyes. A boyish face, an easy-going manner-very much like the boys I dated in high school in Southern California. Below his robe are healthy shoes, Rockports maybe, or Birkenstocks, but they could even be Earth Shoes, and he's a priest? Brother Rufino is less troubling-he's not as familiar-looking at least, with his dark hair and dark eyes, very Italian-looking; he's more like it. But, I think, it doesn't matter. The silence will help, no matter what the surf priest does.

Sister Mary Lou gives some ground rules, the most immediate of which concerns dinner. At breakfast and lunch each day we are to keep silence, but at dinner, including tonight, we have the option of talking with other retreatants. If you want to remain silent, you can sit toward the back of the dining room, away from the food. That's called the silent zone. If you want to talk, you can sit toward the front.

Brother Rufino also goes over some logistics, and he starts by telling us that he has a bad back. "I'm telling you this," he says, "because a stressed body can inhibit prayer; I know," and he explains that there will be a massage therapist available during the week, as well as instruction in Tai Chi. "This week," he says, "is a matter not just of spirit. It's body and spirit." Funny he should mention backs; from the time I arrived my back has been stiff from the waist up, a problem I haven't had in years. I feel as though I'm bracing myself for something, tensed and ready for some kind of onslaught.

When orientation is over, we follow Sister Mary Lou to the dining room and it feels like church camp in fifth grade. I'm instantly shy and painfully self-conscious as I stand in line and fill my plate with roast beef and new potatoes and horseradish and a hot roll. I sit toward the front, with the talkers, not because I want to talk - I don't want to at all-but because my WASP-y good upbringing, which now and then becomes excessive and goes a little haywire-tells me it would be rude to sit in the silent zone on the first night of a silent retreat. People might think you were being stand-offish.

So I sit at one of the first tables, and I try to think of something to talk about. A man who looks perhaps late fifties or early sixties sits down across from me, a man I immediately size up as an aluminum siding or insurance salesman, probably with a solid wife in a suburb somewhere nearby. Wrong. He's an Augustinian priest. I like him immediately, and we talk for a long time, about all sorts of things, and we're the last to leave the dining hall. There's something comforting about him, and while I don't know his reasons for staying so long, I know mine: I'm dreading what lies ahead. As I leave the dining room, I have the feeling that the last conversational train has just pulled out, leaving me at the deserted station of my thoughts.

After dinner I make a call from the pay phone, setting up an interview for a piece on military wives, not because the call is necessary, but just to make sure that my real life is still there. Father Rusty has encouraged us to come away from our daily lives as much as possible, to not use the phone unless we really have to, for example, but I see no need to be rash. Now that I'm away from it, my daily life is looking pretty good.

When I hang up, I go back to my small room, and I'm alone. It's a sinking feeling, and I think, Hey, God, guess what? There's been a mistake; I don't want to do this after all. I'm ready to go now. A wave of homesickness strong as the flu comes over me. My kids are with my parents a hundred miles away, and the man in my life is in Ireland, more miles away than I care to consider, and I've got five days of this ahead of me. What was I thinking? But it's Monday night, and I won't leave until Friday morning, so there isn't much to be done. And whatever there is to be done will be done in silence.

At eight o'clock we gather for the opening conference and we hear from Father Rusty, who starts by telling us that we are on holy ground in this place, that God is very present here. And he assures us that we've done a good thing in coming here; one of the ideas of retreat, aside from the obvious one of getting away from it all, is that you are very intentionally and purposefully taking time to be with God, the same way you might make time for your spouse or children. Having never done anything like this before, I find this reassuring, and my Vacation Bible Schooling instantly kicks in loud and clear: surely I'll be rewarded. He encourages us to lay our expectations for this week on the altar; be open to surprises, he says, be open to transformation.

Afterwards we go to a small chapel for night prayer. The lights are low and the chapel is very simple, with wooden pews, each one large enough for only two people. The crucifix hangs from the ceiling over the altar, and the light casts the shadow of the cross and Christ's outstretched arms against the back wall of the chapel, and it all feels very real. Brother Rufino plays softly on the piano and sings a chant-Stay with Me, remain with Me, watch with Me-and his voice and the words are beautiful in the night. I find the whole thing unexpectedly moving: as often happens lately, I am in tears very quickly, something I've attributed to lingering grief over the breakup of my marriage and the weight of being a single mother. It seems that every time I quiet down, I cry, and tonight is no different. I do what I try to do most times: stay with it, as they say, and try to trust that it's leading somewhere. And that, sooner or later, it will have an end.

But there's also something new tonight, a fear that comes from my childhood images of God, God as Indian-giver, spoilsport, trickster, always ready to take away what you most love, and I find myself suspicious and afraid, thinking, What are You going to take away? What will I have to give up? But there is no answer, at least not yet, only a sort of patient silence: Wait. Just wait.

When prayer is over, I walk outside toward my room, and I sit under a pepper tree for a while-not just any pepper tree, but the first pepper tree in California, brought by ship from Peru and planted on these grounds in 1830-and then I go inside and go to bed. A part of me is tempted to have the rest of this cry out, but it seems like too much effort tonight. Get some sleep, I think, having recently learned that Mom was right all those years: fatigue and nutrition do, after all, have an effect.

On Tuesday morning, I wake from a bad dream. In it, I'm being verbally beaten up, scolded so severely that I'm crying too hard to get my breath, and I have those awful five-year-old hiccuppy sobs that won't stop. I wake up so rattled that my breathing's irregular, as though I've been arguing, really riled up. In the dream, there were several people who were displeased with me: my boyfriend, my landlords, and fifty uniformed Boy Scouts all lined up in a single file, facing me like a disinterested firing squad. I recognize a few of them as friends of my son's, and I appeal to them-Jamie, it's me, Scotty's mom-but they don't budge, don't even meet my gaze, while the others really let me have it. They make it clear that I can't do anything right.

That's the first of many dreams during the week, all intense, and I write a bit of it down, thinking I'm sort of whistling in the dark, but last night Father Rusty encouraged us to look within, to examine the darkness, and like someone sick, I want to get better.

At eight o'clock the church bells play "God Bless America," which means it's time for breakfast, but I skip it. I don't want to see anybody, even silently, but I do go to morning prayer, which is simple and brief, a half hour of psalms and Scripture, with silence in between, based on the Liturgy of the Hours. That's followed by the morning conference with Father Rusty, who talks to us about the healthy rhythm of inner and outer journeys. If we're faithful to the inner journey, he says, it thrusts us back out, so that we have a balance between the active Martha and contemplative Mary parts of us. He talks of Jesus' example in the New Testament: he listened first, sensed what the Spirit wanted him to do, then acted and prayed. Listening is a discipline, and he quotes Father Teilhard de Chardin: "I took a lamp and went down." And the point of all this? The discovery and knowledge of our true selves: who we are in God, and who God is in us.

To do this-to quiet ourselves and learn to listen-Father Rusty encourages us to use the Jesus prayer, the invocation of Jesus' name, the oldest prayer in the New Testament next to the Lord's Prayer. The name of Jesus will bring us into wholeness, he says, and he encourages us to slowly repeat the name of Jesus as we concentrate on breathing. And little by little, we'll settle down inside.



Yeah, well, that all sounds great, but meanwhile my head is noisier than ever, and although I work to look serene as I drag myself back to my cell at the end of the morning, I am an imposter. Not only am I not feeling calmer here - I'm feeling more harried than ever, not even breaking even. My thoughts feel like the monkey cage at the zoo, with the monkeys going every which way, and they will not quiet down.

When I get to my room, I do what turns out to be a pattern: I lock the door, strip, and get into bed without any clothes on, as though I've come in from battle, which is exactly what it feels like. There's a battle going on inside, all right, only I don't know who's fighting, much less what it's about, and I see that this silence was not such a good idea after all. I think of the scene in Dr. Zhivago when he's trekked across the snow and found Lara's room. His mustache is frozen; he's white and wild-eyed and ghostly, and she simply puts him to bed. All I know when I get into my small bed is that sleep seems to be the only answer.

Sleep during the week feels like a scheduled activity, puposeful and constructive. At times it seems to approach prayer, it's that essential. It feels different, not restful so much as constructive. I nap often, as though compelled to, and I have the feeling-and the hope-that in part it's because my subconscious is working on overtime, like night crews on a freeway, and by going to sleep, I can get out of the way and let them do their work. When I wake from these naps, and from night sleep as well, it's as though I've been drugged, and I have to rouse myself from another state.



When I wake at two that afternoon, things feel a little quieter, not so much peaceful as stilled, as though the actors have left the theater, and even if it's only because they're taking a break, I'm grateful.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons, we're offered the opportunity of seeing video tapes of Father Anthony de Mello, the Indian Jesuit. On Tuesday he talks of silence. Any way to God has to go through silence, he says. God is nothing like we say he is, think he is, imagine he is. Any image we have is more unlike him than like him. Our ideas of God are all inadequate; all of our images are far more unlike him than like him, yet we cling to these images-and they are our biggest obstacles. Even Scripture is only a pointer toward God, a finger pointing at the moon. And it is impossible to contain God: he is everywhere, within us, without us, above and below. Father de Mello uses many analogies: when we search for God without finding him, we are like a fish in the ocean asking, Where is this ocean that everyone talks about? And so, he tells us, stop looking for something sensational. Just look. Become quiet and you may see. Look at the dance and hopefully you will see the dancer.

Tuesday night at dinner I'm back in the silent zone, as self-conscious as ever. That night when Sister Mary Lou talks to us, everyone seems stilled; we look like residents of a group care facility. Sister Mary Lou has good news: she tells us that sleeping a lot at the start of retreat is very common. People come here exhausted in every way - emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. And that harried feeling I had was normal as well. When we get away from daily life, she says, it's as though all of our internal radios get turned up full blast - the mom radio, the daughter radio, the teacher, the bill-payer, all of them yelling at you.

Sister Mary Lou gives me hope, with her down-to-earthness and her humor. A few weeks ago, she tells us, she was explaining to a group that it was important for Christians to understand the Jewish faith and tradition so that they understood where Jesus was coming from, since he was Jewish. Someone in that group interrupted her. "Jesus was not Jewish," the man said, "he was a Christian." "I'm sorry," she told the man gently but firmly, "but he was Jewish." "He was a Christian," the man insisted. Sister Mary Lou deadpans to us: "And I thought, Sure, and next you'll tell me he was a baptized Catholic." She's a nice complement to Father Rusty, who has encouraged us to imagine Jesus with us encountering our pasts and our presents and the scenes from the Gospels during prayer. But Sister Mary Lou has a confession: "I've never seen Jesus," she says. "Father Rusty has all these vivid visions of Jesus, and that's great, but I've never seen him. I saw his shoulder once. That's why I use video."

By the end of Tuesday night, my radios have quieted a little, and there's the edge of stillness, as though the weather's changed from stormy to just overcast. I don't feel jubilant, or even particularly happy. But I feel calm, and watchful. I find myself looking for things in my life that have been hard to accept, and I begin to try to accept them, and while I do feel protected in a way, I don't exactly feel safe. I have no idea what's coming next.

On Wednesday morning the church bells play "The Halls of Montezuma" and I'm alarmed to find myself singing along. I even know the words from when we learned them in fourth grade. I've slowed down a little, but this looking inside myself is not nearly as much fun as the tranquility I'd hoped for. There are a lot of things in the crowded closet of my soul that I don't like: pettiness and petulance and a guardedness, as though my soul's boarded up, and inside I'm hoarding a small piece of flint. But I stay with it, almost like running laps. My back hurts and my head's tight and that ex-husband look-alike paces the limits of my peripheral vision almost as though it dictates his path. But weirdly enough, I also feel as though I'm doing exactly what I should be doing. There's an odd sort of insistence to it, and I just try to hold on.

That afternoon I have a massage. The massage therapist is a hip single dad who had to cancel the first day's appointments because his young son had the flu; most of his work is hospice work with AIDS and cancer patients. He's handsome enough to make me nervous, but pleasant and low-key enough to make it go away, and he seems genuinely concerned about my well-being. He starts by just sort of pushing and pulling at my body, and I have the feeling that that's what this week is doing to me: roughing me up a little. He tells me that there's a lot of anxiety in my shoulders and anger in my belly, and that I should try to loosen up through stretching. "You're pretty pissed off about something," he adds, and all I can do is nod and think, I know, I'm working on it, I'm working on it.

Anthony de Mello talks about peace that afternoon, and starts by telling us that a selfish heart is the enemy of peace, not quarreling or fighting. The remedy is acceptance: peace is found in yes. We have to learn to accept what we can't change. Peace is a gift, he says; we have to dispose our hearts to receive it.

Late Wednesday afternoon, I venture outside the gates. This is a Franciscan Retreat Center on the grounds of a Franciscan mission, and I go out for a walk. But there are tourists around and I find very quickly that I don't like being "outside" and I head right back toward the wrought iron gates that separate the retreat center from the rest of the mission, gates that are locked each day at six o'clock, which for some reason I find comforting. But before going back inside, I walk down the driveway to what looks like a gated garden; it's deserted, and I go through the wrought iron gates and down brick steps to a sort of brick plaza. I read on a small plaque that I'm standing in the laundry, where the Indians washed their clothes and bathed long ago. There are aqueducts and gargoyled spouts made of stone, and I feel immediately at home. Laundry: I think of home, of my kids, the smell of clean clothes, the dresser drawer that sticks when I put my son's T-shirts away.

Things get harder on Wednesday night.

We're at night prayer, in the chapel again, and Father Rusty is leading us through a prayer of guided imagery. As he talks-narrates, really-we listen and let our imaginations fill in the surroundings and tell us the story.

He starts by telling us to concentrate on our breathing as a way to become centered, calm. I do that, and find myself concentrating on very shallow breaths. After a while, he tells us that each of us is in an elevator. The elevator doors close, and we are going down, further down into our inner beings, our hearts. The elevator stops, and when the doors open, he says, we each find ourselves in the home we know best, the home of our childhood. For me, it's 1941 Euclid, a small Spanish-style house in Southern California, the house I lived in between the ages of 2 and 7, and when those elevator doors open, I think, Oh dear God, please, not here.

I'm immediately very afraid, and my fear startles me because I don't know the reason for it. Nothing bad happened in that house: no traumas, no dramas, no crises. Just a chunk of my childhood. But as I imagine entering this house, my back is tight, I'm crying, and I really don't want to be here. I stay with it though, hoping somehow to be brave, and we go on. Father Rusty leads us inside, and I see the small living room, the den with the curtains I'd hide behind when "Twilight Zone" got too scary. There's my parents' room, then the kitchen. Father Rusty tells us to continue to our room, and I do. There's a guest waiting for us, he says, and I go in, and it's Christ, who tells me that everything is all right; there's nothing to be afraid of. And that I've never been alone; he's always been right here.

In a few minutes night prayer is over, and we are told that we are welcome to stay in the chapel or walk outside, but what I want is to be back in my room, somewhere safe. I don't have any idea what to make of my fear of that house, and all I want is to be alone.

On Thursday morning the church bells play "Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder," which feels like a joke, because I'm still rattled from the childhood house images last night, and I'm dreading my next encounter. In the morning conference, Father Rusty quotes 1 Samuel 3:19, where Eli tells Samuel, "He is the Lord. He will do what he judges best," an idea that inspires in me a holding-on-by-my-fingernails trust at best. We are called, Father Rusty says, to be holy, which means willing to love and be loved. And we are called to be perfect, meaning not good, but whole. To do that, he says, we have to go into our pasts and be willing to heal old wounds, to ask God to make okay what wasn't okay.

That afternoon, in the last tape, Anthony de Mello talks of joy, which, he tells us, is intimately linked to peace. When we don't have joy, when we search for it, we are like the fish in the ocean who is thirsty. And he quotes St. Augustine: "Our hearts were created for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they find their rest in You." And what keeps us from joy are wrong attitudes that we carry around. For one, that joy and happiness mean a high. Not so. Joy is quieter and more lasting. Second, that we think we can chase after happiness, which cannot be sought in itself, but is rather the offshoot of something else. When it's deepest, you're hardly aware of it; it's barely an experience. And third, that joy is found in externals - in other people, or a job, or a place. It has nothing to do with externals.

And so, he says, we need to change those attitudes. First, we should examine ourselves for the presence of a sulking child: Unless I get this, I refuse to be happy. Find out if it exists in your heart and drop it. Period. Instead, ask to be happy no matter what you get. Then check for the clinging child, a part of you that clings to negative emotions, because if you do that, you'll never be happy. Heartbreak, jealousy, guilt, resentment: you feel them and let them go, but don't cling to them.

After that I'm back in my room again, alone. During the week, we've been encouraged, during prayer, to "go into our hearts," and I'm going to try again, though I'm dreading it. But I do it. I sit on my bed. I concentrate on my breathing. I ask God to be with me. And I try to listen.
Here is what happens:

I'm standing in a hospital room, very clinical, spare. Christ is next to me. There are three beds. In the first, closest to me, I see myself as I am today: well-dressed, well-mannered, well-meaning. Though I am silent, nothing seems to be wrong. In the second bed, I'm younger, an adolescent. I'm wearing a hospital gown and I've had what seems to be a very standard procedure, as unremarkable as getting your tonsils out used to be: my genitals have been sliced off. There is nothing gory about it; there isn't even much blood, and I don't seem to be in pain. I just seem quiet.

In the third bed, I'm younger still, perhaps seven or eight, again in a hospital gown. Another procedure,equally clinical: my tongue has been removed. Once again, I am not really in pain. Just subdued.

The image frightens me and at the same time there is something about it that feels true, and I come away with is an odd sense of quiet, because what's surprising isn't the images so much as the sense that I have never been alone. He's been there all along.

Thursday night at dinner I ask to talk to Father Rusty. I'm dreading going within anymore; I've become wary of my subconscious, afraid of what I'll see next, not to mention what it all means. We sit together at the back of the dining room, and I tell him about the hospital room. He listens carefully, nodding, and when I finish, he shakes his head thoughtfully. "There are a lot of things that need to be healed," he says simply. I'm half disappointed, half relieved: disappointed because I'd been hoping for more of an explanation, relieved because he could have, after all, winced and said, "Wow, you look like such a nice girl, but you're really sick!"

But he doesn't, of course, and what I come to understand is that those images aren't about anything awful or traumatic that happened during my childhood; they're just about growing up. Because that's what often happens in the course of childhood and adolescence. We're seen and not heard-our tongues are removed. We're told to be good-our genitals are sliced away-and for most of us it's not terribly gory or dramatic. It's far more clinical, just a matter of course.

Thursday night Father Rusty tells us the story of St. Francis, and when he gets to the part where Francis is accused of being mad for giving away all that he owned and turning his back on his family's wealth, Francis, Father Rusty tells us, faced his accusers and said, "I am mad. I am mad with love," and we are spellbound. Father Rusty is so passionate in his telling that it is as though the story is his own, and as he goes on to tell us something about his own life, and his call, and I see how much older he is than his years, and how wise, and I feel blessed to be around him. It's as though he's been transformed during the week, though it is, of course, me, not him, who's changed.

But by the end of the night I have a hard time staying with everything. It feels like the last night at camp: dinner was fish sticks and chocolate chip cookies for dessert, but I'm ready for a taco and a very cold beer. I've had enough of being quiet, enough of looking within. I'm ready to welcome that boyfriend home from Ireland, and shoot hoops with my kids, and roughhouse with the dog. I'm ready to leave. I have the feeling I've gone far enough inside for now, as far as I can, and that this is all I can handle for a while.

I didn't figure everything out that week. I didn't leave with any of my questions answered, or that gift I'd wanted so badly, a Ouija-board clarity that would tell me, Yes, do this, no, not that. Here is what happened instead:

The last morning, Friday, I wake very early. It's four a.m., and looks like the middle of the night. There've been no bad dreams, no images. I wasn't even grinding my teeth. But I'm instantly awake. Outside my window the courtyard is dark and silent, but I sit up and open the curtain a few inches to let in some light from the hallway outside.

And suddenly I am aware of a Great Being nearby, as though I am in the midst of something very large, and I know that He is here. Look how beautiful everything is, He says, only I don't hear anything; I just sense that that's what He's feeling. He seems pleased and protective, like a father checking on His sleeping children in the night, and for once, maybe for the first time, I don't need words with God. I just sit with Him for a while, because I sense that's all He wants of me-my presence-and as I look within, a little less nervous in the middle of this night, I find a gift far more amazing than anything I'd imagined: the sweet undeniable presence of the Lover himself.

Visit Bo Caldwell as Image Artist of the Month for December 2002

Issue #19• Spring 1998