Trading the Comfort of Books for the Unknown
I was in a retreat rut.
Silent retreats are part of my practice for living an integrated life of integrity. I go on them at least twice a year, and I’ve been going to the same retreat center for over 7 years.
This retreat house has a large, well-stocked art room, huge windows that overlook old trees active with squirrel families, delicious home-cooked meals I think about all year, and cookies and coffee available 24/7. It’s been my home for over 15 silent retreats.
I was bummed when I caught myself in a routine there last spring. Routines usually bring me comfort, but this routine just annoyed me. I knew what to expect. Part of the deliciousness of a silent retreat is being surprised, and it’s hard to be surprised when there’s a routine.
So, I changed it up this year: new retreat center, new state, new group of people, new spiritual director. I didn’t know if the food or coffee was good, which worried me more than I care to admit. Some retreat centers don’t have good food or coffee, and let me tell you, it makes for an unnecessarily challenging spiritual experience.
My first meeting with my spiritual director was as I expected until I shared with him that I’d been reading. That’s part of what I do on retreat; I read spiritual books I have saved specifically for retreat week.
“You’re an academic,” he said. “The last thing you should be doing on retreat is reading.”
RIP all the books I didn’t read on silent retreat.
“What do you mean ‘don’t read’? What the hell am I going to do with three more days of silence if I can’t read?!”
But he saw what I wasn’t ready to admit – my "spiritual reading" had become work and a distraction. I was thinking about clients and workshops instead of being present. All of that thinking took me away from my inner life.
Yes! There’s more! Behold, the little library of retreat books that I didn’t read.
“Where do you connect with Love?”, my director asked me, using “Love” for “God” since that’s how I told him I understand the Divine right now.
“When I’m drawing, walking, and journaling. I love watching the squirrels when I’m on retreat, but I haven’t seen any yet,” I replied.
“Then do that in that order: draw, walk, journal. Don’t do. Just be,” he encouraged.
Leaving a routine, even as small as a retreat routine, can be terrifying (see above for my strong reaction to being told to change it up). It can also be exhilarating. In my own discernment process, I’ve found that the path of uncertainty is often the path to freedom because it’s free of expectations.
Expectations are tricky things because they are the breeding ground of resentment and disappointment for me. Expectations keep me from living in the present, from accepting reality as it is, and from making decisions that are grounded in my values.
Allowing instead of expecting frees up space in my gut and heart centers. Then my ideas, decisions, and actions are rooted in something more universal and wiser than my ego.
So, the next morning on retreat, good coffee in hand (this retreat center’s coffee was excellent, thankfully), I drew. Marker, crayons, and paper, and no plan.
Oh yeah, that’s when the squirrels showed up.
