The Anchoress

Well…it was sort of noisier than I’m used to, but still fruitful, albeit in unexpected ways.

Turns out the house was hosting a group of Baptist ladies who were having some sort of meeting about pastoral concerns. They were very nice people who pray loudly. They sing loudly. They converse loudly at meals. They had jangly jewelry which made them walk loudly.

My retreat arrangements were last minute, and so I’m just happy to be there.

I am accustomed to sharing the retreat area with other folks, sometimes. Usually the folks are looking for silence too, and so everyone smiles and nods to everyone else and then we go about trying to be as inobtrustive as possible, for each other’s sake. Once in a while there will be a gang that needs to talk. It’s usually fine - the nuns will tell the talkers to simply be aware of the non-talkers and try not to intrude on their silence, and it all works out.

But these poor Baptist ladies…they couldn’t quite get their minds around the idea that they were sharing space with someone “keeping silence.” It was actually pretty funny, and I bore them no resentment. I clearly was - to them - a strange, mysterious and ultimately scary creature.

I should have known I was in trouble as soon as I walked in. There stood several women, all very animated and excited and gabby - they were having a weekend away, to talk church business and whatever, and they were excited. When I attempted to duck by them as unobtrusively as possible, one of them grabbed my arm and asked if I was part of their meeting, and if so, why, I shouldn’t feel shy at all!

This being the Northeast, these were not Southern women, but they seemed to have an element of that wild and entertaining creation about them.

I said, “Thank you, no, I’m here for a private retreat.”

“Oh,” she said, her smile faltering only a little at the corners. “Well, God bless you then!”

I thanked her, hoped God blessed their weekend, too and was thankfully rescued by a nun who knows me, knows I am very shy, and knows that when I come for retreat, my head is already there…she knows that for me, once my head is there, these sorts of friendly ladies in pink lipstick and flowered glasses loom like good-natured bubbles of teeth and high-octane cameraderie, appearing, expanding and bursting before my awareness, which is already in a sort of shut down, and just not processing it well.

All that bursting is never a good thing.

Upstairs to my little room. Unpack, make the bed, set up the icons and the laptop, although I know going in that I will have almost nothing to write, all weekend. I head down for supper (the bell is tinkling) and stop by the little utility room off the refectory, which holds a soda machine - for what is life without Diet Pepsi - and there are several more women in there…or they might be the same ladies, I can’t tell. Stumbling upon groups of energetically conversing women has always filled me with discomfort and a vague sense of get-me-out-of-here, and all I want to do is get my Diet Pepsi and be on my way.

“Are you with us? Are you new? If you are, don’t spend your money on soda, we brought it.”

As I said, these are VERY nice people. Any problem here is mine, I know it. They’re very nice. But they keep talking to me, and way too pleasantly, too.

When one encounters people who are speaking to one in a pleasant manner, one must answer pleasantly. This is so taxing, sometimes.

I smile weakly, explain that I am retreating silently, and move down the corridor. The very nice woman pokes her head out the room and hollars (I guess, so I -and every nun in the house - will hear her) “You’re taking a SILENT retreat?”

I turn, offer an even weaker smile and nod my head.

“Wow,” she exclaims. “I could NEVER do that!”

I know. Uncharitably, I think to myself…dear woman, you have a gift for understatement…and I rebuke myself for being just as mean as I know I can be. Sainthood does not come with silence or retreats or scripture study. Sainthood is conferred upon us by the grace of Almighty God, and it is a grace he has not seen fit to yet bestow upon me.

I have my doubts that he ever will.

Somehow, they all beat me to the refectory, and as I step in they’ve begun to say grace. I stand quietly and respectfully, off to the side, head down, and participate in their prayer for a few minutes. Then I start shifting from foot to foot, wondering if grace is really the time bring to the Lord’s attention every woman’s particular life-situation or intention. The smell of home-made baked ziti is wafting, and I start to worry that the food is getting cold. I wiggle my eyebrows at one of the kitchen workers and she shrugs at me and tosses her head in the direction of the private dining room, reassuring me that my meal will be a silent one.

After about 8 minutes of Grace, one of the women calls out to me, “are you the woman making the SILENT retreat?”

For some reason, I want to burst out laughing - it all seems like a strange parody to me - but I resist. Taking a plate and getting on line to serve myself, I nod, smiling like a doofus.

“Well, you’re more than welcome to join us for supper in here! I can’t imagine eating a meal all alone in the silence!”

I can. Oh, God…I can.

“It’s alright,” I say softly. “Thank you. I’m keeping silence.”

These are very sweet, generous people, but they clearly don’t know what to make of this concept of silence. I have friends and neighbors like this - people I really like and admire, but who simply are not comfortable with quiet, or with the idea of it. They are people of action! They get things done, and God bless them all. I mean it! God bless them. But they seem to need reassurance that I’m doing this voluntarily, that I actually WANT to be quiet and alone. They’re worried about me, I can see it. And they think I might be strange, too.

Slipping into my little dining room, the heavy door closes behind me and the suppertime chatter and peals of laughter become faint and easy to lose. Eating, I flip open my breviary to a random page, and read about Moses veiling his face, after his skin, upon conversing with God, becomes too luminous. It means nothing to me, just a favorite story that brings no particular insight this day. I do not feel the Holy Spirit leading me into a lesson of any sort. Finishing my meal, I must return to the main dining room to deliver my tray. I know that at sometime during the meal the ladies have been greeted by a nun who has welcomed them, gone over the rules of the house and given helpful information. I know from experience that one helpful piece of information she has imparted is “this weekend we do also have a retreatant here who is keeping silence, so please try not to intrude on that.”

I can tell sister has imparted that nugget of news, because as I move through the dining room, several of the women nod their heads and smile at me, and I gratefully do the same. Apparently not all the women heard sister, though - or some came to supper late - because as I leave one woman - someone who obviously really doesn’t know what to make of me, but wants me to feel loved or something, calls out, “I like your shawl, it’s very pretty!”

Two others shush her, “leave her alone, she’s being SILENT!”

“I just was saying…”

Happily, my room is very quiet, and because the ladies are Baptist, not Catholic, they do not venture into the chapel. They are welcome to, of course, but the sense I get is that they really have no idea what scary thing they may find in there, so they stay in the basement conference room with a Korg and a tamborine and a guitar. It’s winter, and all windows and doors are tightly closed. From the chapel, I hear nothing, and I sit there just letting the silence grow deep and sweet, and sleep closes in. I sleep before the Tabernacle for hours.

Some people think there is an element of holiness to retreats. There might be, but truth be told, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t spend some portion of a retreat just allowing themselves to unwind, like thread from a spool, taking naps at odd times. The next day, Saturday, I’ve slept through breakfast and after a bit of time reading and praying (it is ugly snowy wet outside so I can’t walk the trails) I go to that utility room for a cup of tea. (The room is like a small ’serve yourself’ kitchen with coffee, tea, cookies and fruit.) Obeying the house rules, I drink my tea in a little corner of the room, perusing a magazine on vocations. Silent in my corner, I seem to spook various women as they come in to help themselves to their store of goodies and soda. They see me and gasp, realizing they might be intruding. They are not. By now I have taken full responsibility for my silence by keeping my eyes downward, but they’re still worried that they might be bothering me (I told you, they’re nice people) and because they are, they’re walking on eggshells…which means they are fumbling around, dropping things, gasping and otherwise making a tremendous racket. I feel really bad for them, and finish my tea quickly, so I can leave and they can relax.

This is the most unusual retreat I have ever had.

Back to chapel. I pray the Rosary, meditating on the Sorrowful mysteries…I bring everyone I’ve promised to pray for into the prayer, imagine us all on the via dolorosa, watching Jesus endure his passion. The Way of the Cross is easy for no one, and no one escapes it, either. I pray for Terri Schiavo. For some reason, remembering Moses veiling his face, I feel inspired to do the same. I put my shawl over my head and down over 2/3 of my face and stay like that, breathing quite naturally into the “Jesus prayer.”

In the dark and the quiet, I feel like I’ve gone way out to sea - like I’m bobbing along, being carried by something large and gentle and good, with no known destination and a complete blankness all around. Wonderfully consoling. An elderly nun creeps in…she is extraordinarily quiet but in such a vast and deep silence, the merest, tiniest sound reverberates, and I open my eyes and peer through my scarf. I know her. She is about 100 years old, fully in her wits and still active. She used to give me spiritual direction, and I know that her frail frame is a mere disguise. She is a warrior and a woman who cuts through BS like no one I’ve ever met. She nods at me, seeming to find nothing odd in my face being mostly veiled. She takes a seat to my right, and finds her own deep.

Later that afternoon, I am in a sunny reading room enjoying what I have come to think of as MY chair. It is old and comfortable, and I always fall asleep in it. I am reading about Moses again - for some reason this is a Moses weekend - and looking forward to giving it all up for a snooze. It comes…I know it comes because some time later, I am awakened. A bunch of Baptist ladies jangle into the room. Seeing me asleep, they thoughtfully close a partition and proceed to talk about Jesus, ministry, their pastors, etc. My good friend Moses whispers that I should just go back to sleep and not be bothered by them. “Cover your face and go back to sleep,” he advises. Throwing the shawl over the head and face again, I do.

Saturday night, I repair to my room and haul out a half-written novel I had planned to re-read, prayerfully, on the weekend. I’d started it two years ago, putting it away when I realized that I am too Catholic a writer to not bring Catholic sensibilities into the plot. Now, I read it and decide that I really like the story a lot. But I am still stymied about the Catholicity I have deemed it must contain, and I am a little intimidated by the sheer volume of changes the first 13 chapters will require. I put it away, ask God to help me with it when and if it is ever time to re-start the project, and sleep some more.

If the Saturday of a weekend retreat is the deep submerge, the Sunday begins the decompression. Slowly, as the day proceeds, you understand that you have to get reaclimated to the rhythms of the world. You feel a little like a submarine being ordered to surface, even though you resolutely want to order, “dive, dive…” It is pretty much time to go, rejoin the world, and I have promised to attend a St. Patrick’s Day parade, so I can’t tarry. I put away the shawl, which seems suddenly too warm, and begin to raise my eyes a bit and awaken to the rest of the world. The Baptist ladies are packing and noisily encouraging each other to get moving. I get my little bag and pass by their rooms, stopping by one open door because I recognise this lady as the tremendously outgoing one who had been so troubled by my silence. Not yet ready to speak, I tap at her door and, when she turns, I smile and give a little wave good-bye.

Smiling broadly, but with perfect silence, she waves back. And somehow…I have the feeling that, even if only on the barest of levels…she “gets” something about the quiet that had eluded her earlier.

Cast out into the deep. In silence or in sound…cast out into the deep.
UPDATE: Tracey went on a sort of retreat this weekend too, and found her own deep. And a little child shall lead…