Peg Kerr's Journal

and am sending up a prayer that my car will get me there and back. The clutch is feeling a mite squishy to me.

Will be back Sunday night. Try not to get into too much trouble without me.

I'm going back to the St. Benedict's spirituality center for a retreat, this Thursday through Sunday. I'll bring my soul collage supplies, take walks.

Heaven knows I need to get away.

I'm home again. My experience at St. Benedict's Spirituality Center was just as positive as last time for the most part. I appreciated seeing Sister Dorothy, Sister Luanne, Sister Josue and Sister Rita again, all of whom I met last year. I really do want to make this an annual event. I was pleased to see the candle sculpture standing over the mantlepiece. I lit the candles at night as I worked on soul collage cards.

Candle Tree at St. Benedict's - 2009

The last night and day, they had a planned retreat scheduled, which was attended by twelve women, and I just ended up joining that. That was okay, but I really did like the entirely private retreat a little bit better.

Thank you for your words of comfort and good wishes and your prayers; I really felt the support from all of you. As I said, I worked on soul collage and made several new cards which I'll post later tonight or perhaps tomorrow.

I told the sisters about the Decrease Worldsuck project. They thought it sounded awesome.

The last time I went on a retreat, I asked people to send me trees, and I got many marvelous responses. Thank you.

I'm going on retreat again because as you know things have been hard lately, and so I've been struggling. This time, I'll simply ask for this: I'd just appreciate an encouraging note. Or an affirmation. Or a good wish. Or a prayer. Or simply something just to think about in the days to come. Tell me what you think I'm doing right, tell me I'll get through this (me and my family, both). Tell my why you like reading this LiveJournal.

Tell me anything you think will give me light in dark places. Lurkers, I'd really appreciate hearing from you, too.

Thanks.

Love,
Peg

The retreat, as I said, was wonderful. The St. Benedict's Monastery, which is associated with the Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict, is on the campus of the College of Saint Benedict, a woman's college in St. Joseph, Minnesota (the nearby men's college is St. John's). It's the largest resident community of Benedictine nuns at present in the world, although there's a group in Africa which is getting close in size. The median age of the Sisters (I believe) is around 74. The Spirituality Center, where I stayed, had another life as a college dormitory, but now people on retreat stay there, as well as groups who come to use the center. Very comfortable. I had two strokes of luck: my visit was actually timed with the college's spring break, so there were no students around, which meant it was extremely quiet. And there were no other people staying in the Spirituality Center, either. There was one woman who was also on a retreat (a week of respite from caring for her father, who has Alzheimer's), but she was staying at the Hermitage. These are two little rustic cottages: one is kept for people who come for retreat, as I did, and one is reserved for Sisters of the order for their retreats. The Hermitage might be nice to do some time, but I was perfectly happy at the Spirituality Center, since there was no one else staying there but me. Sisters staffed it during the day, but I had the place to myself at night, and it was nice to go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea, and have a plate of the homemade cookies that the Sisters made and helpfully tucked into the breadbox for me. I ate breakfast at the Spirituality Center's kitchen--cereal or eggs. One day I made French toast. Lunch and dinner I ate with the Sisters in their dining hall.

It felt so strange, in a way, the way they took care of me. It made me realize how much being a caretaker is part of my daily life, that having that role reversed seemed like such a big deal. The first morning I came into the Spirituality Center's kitchen for breakfast, there was a place setting of dishes all nicely set out on the counter. "Oh, they're just showing me what dishes are available," I thought vaguely, and pulled other dishes out of the cupboard for my own meal. "But we left those dishes out for you," Sister Luanne told me afterward. And it felt positively decadent to be told to just leave my dishes in the sink. "I can put them in the dishwasher," I protested, trying to be polite. I thought of all the times I had harangued my family to clean up after themselves instead of leaving their dishes for me to do. "Oh, no," Sister Teresa said, smiling. "That's what we do." A Sister was there to accompany me at the lunches and dinners, so that I would have company if I wanted it--but they would show me the little side room where I could eat by myself in silence, if I preferred--which I did on Tuesday, because I was struggling with a bout of tears at lunchtime. If I dropped a spoon or a fork in the dining hall, a Sister would immediately fetch me one to replace it.

Their kindness was part of their service, I realized. All their work that they do, teaching, administrative, nursing, or caring for people on retreat, is their vocation.

The peace sank into my bones, and I embraced it with relief. Threaded throughout the day, the sisters keep the Liturgy of the Hours: morning prayer before breakfast at 7:00 a.m.--I never managed to make that--midday at 11:30 a.m., right before lunch (went to all of those), mass at 5:00 p.m. (ditto) and vespers at 7:00 p.m. (went to that about half the time). I did yoga. I walked in the cold, breathing the crisp air and looking at the sky, sometimes listening to the Holy Tree playlist.

I had a session of spiritual counseling with Sister Josue, which was helpful, and gave me much to think about. I got a massage from Stephanie, who is the newest postulant to the community--she was a massage therapist before coming to St. Benedict's. Sister Dorothy helped me track down a piece of artwork I found mentioned in some of the materials about the Order: apparently, the order's founder, Mother Benedicta Riepp, reported a dream:

I saw a large tree growing up, covered all over with beautiful white blossoms. I believe that the dream is an image of the beautiful life of unity and love shared by all the members (of the new foundation in America).

A piece of artwork was commissioned of the blooming tree in Mother Benedicta's dream for the St. Benedict's Monastery's 150th Anniversary, and Sister Dorothy kindly arranged for me a private viewing to see one of the prints.

I did the soulcollaging at night. That was wonderful. Mostly, I was going through magazines and cutting out images that struck me (back issues of National Geographic are the new crack for me.) But I did make three cards and I have many ideas for further ones, too. What the whole thing did was to give me reassurance about one of my deepest fears, which I think was one of the things that has driven my depression: the sense that I've lost my creativity. By happy chance, I took my ribbon coat to the retreat, and in fact sewed on another ribbon while I was there. I wore it one day and was stopped over and over again by various Sisters in the dining hall who asked me questions about it: "How lovely! Why, you made it yourself? My, how creative you are!" What I realized when I was soulcollaging was the entire process was almost exactly like what I used to do when I wrote short stories: in preparation, I would read voraciously, just as I was combing through images now. I'd get three or four ideas, and then, when one more appeared, the crucial one, the whole story would blossom in my mind, as if I'd dropped a seed crystal into a supersaturated solution, making a crystalline structure bloom. The way the cards came together was just the same.

I haven't lost it, I thought with relief. It's still buried under there, somewhere, even if I'm not writing fiction right now.

It was hard to leave. But Sister Rita gave me a gift when I did that touched me very deeply. With exquisite tact, she didn't hand it to me directly, which might have put me in the awkward situation of wondering whether I should accept it or not. Instead, she handed it on to the Sister who checked me out of the Center to give to me then, a big and beautiful coffee table book filled with splendid photographs: The Meaning of Trees: Botany, History, Healing, Lore, by Fred Hageneder. ( Here is the cover )

I would strongly recommend the St. Benedict Monastery's Spirituality Center for retreats. If you go, and you get half out of it that I did, you will be very blessed indeed.

I have materials for soulcollaging, my lapboard desk, a sketchpad and colored pencils, a yoga mat and the yoga book I borrowed from jbru, my ribbon coat, with sewing kit and new ribbons to sew on if I like, my regular journal and a separate Moleskine journal, a book on writing poetry, a short sad story, a short funny story, a small suitcase with clothes for the next several days, the tree pictures you've given me, my ipod with the Holy Tree playlist (for the car; otherwise I plan to hold the retreat in silence) and, I hope, an open mind and heart.

I'll be back Thursday, the same day as Delia.

Someone else will have to keep all the plates spinning until I return.

I am going to go on a personal retreat the week after next. I will be driving to St. Benedict's Monastery (run by the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict) in St. Joseph. I get a private room and three meals a day for $45 a day, which is within my budget. I can walk the grounds (they have a prayer labyrinth). I can request a massage, if I like. I can join the sisters as they follow the office of the hours of prayer. I can choose to eat in the dining room in a room set aside for those who wish to eat in silence. I can request spiritual counseling, if I like.

I plan to pack as simply as possible. Walking shoes. Blank journal. I would like to bring my yoga mat--if there isn't someone giving a class nearby, I could run a yoga dvd on my laptop. If I bring the laptop (only for the Yoga DVDs, not to check email or anything); am not sure if I will. I don't plan to listen to my iPod while there, although I reserve the right to listen to it in the car. I'll bring the prayer shawl my mother knit for me. I plan to bring a huge pad of tear off sheets of paper and drawing pens for brainstorming. Perhaps collaging materials. I may bring a couple of carefully chosen books--not for entertainment purposes, but for study on some subjects which need to be carefully considered.

What have you done on a personal retreat? Suggestions (with the understanding that, of course, I can make different decisions than you might?) What have you brought with you?