Retreat Days

September 1, 2005, Saint Andrews Abbey

Underneath all the planning, preparing for approval, accepting responsibility for stewardship of my new financial assets is still a well of grief. It meets me here. I was already weeping when I arrived. Every time I thought about money, it opened a well of tears. It should have been clear from my inability to do anything smart with my money that it was complicated for me. Leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars in my checking account and using it to buy hundred-dollar shoes is not a good investment strategy. But I was unprepared for the deep anxiety and tears that followed my conversation with Jim Kottra, my new financial manager.
It was tempting to spend my time here working my way through the Buffy DVDs Rachel gave me as a birthday gift, and making runs down the hill for chocolate bars. I made another choice; to be in the quiet of this place and let it inform my reflection. If this is “God’s House” for me, I need to bring all the turmoil, all the doubt, all the fear and questions and let them breathe in this high desert air. I want to let God’s presence here inform how I see them, how I hold them, how I live in those questions.
This openness is so hard. Everything makes me cry; singing “into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit…” at Compline; watching the morning light illuminate the cups and glasses on the empty breakfast table brings tears up from a deep well of both sadness and joy. These are the images that go with me when I leave here, that are part of my dwelling in God’s house forever.
Walking on the monastery road this morning, Father E’s garden with its avenue of brilliant green Lombardy Poplars rose up on the hill to my left. Ahead of me were the cottonwoods which surround the pasture, reaching higher than the five-story Disney Concert Hall we visited on Monday. The trees never fail to move me with their glorious, unself-conscious beauty. On Monday, Marti and I spent the day at the new concert hall and cathedral in Los Angeles, architectural wonders of the modern world. And, I find, they pale in comparison to the simple beauty of these trees. The rise of the poplars is the truth that the spires of cathedrals imitate, the delicate green on the huge cottonwoods, the real grace that architecture emulates. Walking among these monuments of living praise invites me to release the reactions that drive my compulsions for the time that I am here, knowing that when I pick them up again to leave, I might have some new peace with them.
In Psalm 50, God chides the people for going through the motions in their worship and praise. The praise God asks for is disarmingly simple – requests for help in distress. Who would have thought that asking for help when you are lost and confused is praise? So I will spread my loneliness and confusion out before the God who invites them into our relationship. I will bring that home.