What to focus on while on retreat
We retreatants spend a lot of time in our rooms, when not participating in the prayer hours, eating, or walking. As I mentioned I brought with me about a dozen books, hoping to focus on one or two while here. Monday night I thumbed through them all, picking out chapters or passages, actively praying that God would say – “read that one, David, that’s one you need!”. But I sensed instead something different from God, perhaps a slight chuckle, then a shouted (not audible of course) suggestion – “David, don’t read. Write. Or at least do both”. This encounter changed my “plans”, so I have focused on Eugene Peterson’s memoir, “The Pastor”, and “Life on the Vine” by Philip Kennison – we read this book in seminary, and it is one of the few books I rebought after I lost my entire theological library to Hurricane Katrina, and high time I returned to it. It is a book about being, truly being, a Christian community in a culture that is becoming increasingly not at all about Jesus, and this includes many churches and church leaders. While reading I am making notes and praying about what I am learning or re-learning and how to apply it in my own life and ministry, and in the church I have been called to shepherd. And, as you can see, writing a lot. How do any of y’all feel about me trying to spend more time writing? I would love your feedback.

Prayer
I told the people of St. Simon’s that I would be praying for each of them, and I am. I have a directory and have divided it up in order to spend time praying for each individual and family, for our ministries, and for our staff. Tuesday night in the chapel alone, I also spent much prayer time for Jennifer and all of my family.

Specific Prayer for St. Simon’s

Knowing our parish is going to be dealing with some challenging “opportunities” regarding our physical plant and financial realities, I spent a lot of prayer time wondering about how we can corporately pray about this. There is no need at this point to go into the challenges on this blog, but perhaps I will at a later date. I am not anxious about any of this and doing my best to trust in God and in our people. To that end, here is a prayer I offered for all of us to begin praying at our Sunday, January 1st service. Join us if you are so inclined:

“Send us your Spirit, Lord, that we may learn what you would have us do, and the words and witness you would have us offer. Guide us as we continue your work. Show us the field in which to plant, that your Kingdom may come and your power revealed in this community, to the glory of your Name. AMEN”

**Update **- I did a lot more than “a little” walking. Using a map I crossed Monk Road onto the 1500 acres the monastery owns.

I was intent on finding the statues area. It didn’t help that I was reading the map upside down, I ended up climbing a couple of very steep hills before noticing my mistake. I had a little distance to make up and I set off for the woods trail to the statues.
Once I found the marked trail I was in the woods for sure. There was a path with the occasional sign saying “To the Statues”,

to remind people like me they were going the right way. The path was very slippery due to rotting leaves on it and in some places stones which must have been there forever and were covered with moss. At one point you cross a creek on a tiny bridge, and a bit later up a set of stairs that are basically a ladder built into the hillside.

I finally made it to the first set of statues, they are small but strategically placed to give an idea of the garden.

Past these are the newer statues commissioned in honor of Jonathan Daniels. They are stunning. One depicts the 3 disciples sleeping (“can you not watch with me one hour?”).

The other is a tormented Jesus, kneeling on a stone to pray, in anguish asking God the Father to “take this cup from me”. I spent time praying by both of these statues, reflecting on Jesus’ last days.

I hiked back out of the woods and back to the monastery, over all I walked over 7000 steps and 3 miles, almost all of which was in the woods and up and down lots of hills! It was worth every minute, but I was soaked in sweat by the time I got back to my room.

My walk was timely because that night and the next day the temperatures dropped to the low 20s! No snow but too cold for walking in the woods! More to come….

As I said, Monday evening it all begins (the retreat and silence officially starts with supper at 6pm. Yes we eat in total silence, with a little music playing in the background. Last time I was here (2011), they played recordings of their famous monk, Thomas Merton, instructing new classes of monk novices. They have stopped that practrice as some retreatants found it annoying.) I spent time figuring out a book or two of the dozen I brought to focus on, some Brugemann, some Eugene Peterson, a few others. I finally attempted to sleep around 11 but it took a while. I had intended to rise for Vigils at 3:15, and the bell which announces every service woke me, but I decided to doze another couple of hours. So on Wednesday I plan to attend most if not all of the 7 divine hours plus Eucharist. I did make it to Terce post breakfast today (Tuesday).
After the prayers I walked a little outside – it’s a tad brisk here. But the sunrise was so beautiful. This part of Kentucky is quite pretty, rolling hills, lots of trees just past their fall colors. Seeing high hills is a different view for sure for a Florida panhandle guy! Today’s schedule will include a walk across the street on the large expanse of acreage (about 1500 acres) the monastery has. There are a couple of sets of statues I want to see, entitled The Garden of Gethsemene, one set of which was donated as a memorial to Episcopal Saint and Martyr, Jonathan Daniels, who is honored every August with a pilgrimage to Haneyville, Alabama where he, as an Episcopal seminarian, was shot and killed protecting a 12 year old girl from racial violence after he had been jailed for supporting voting rights for black citizens in Alabama. The Reverend Bob Graves, a priest of our diocese and dear friend, was a seminary classmate of Daniels.

I am reading my hero, Eugene Peterson’s, memoir “A Pastor”. As he was learning how to be a pastor, he reflected on life lessons from growing up in Montana, including an encounter with a Native American woman named Prettyfeather. The story is too long to recall here, just wanted the following quote to have some context. The process to becoming a “pastor” is different for everyone, but he speaks some truths I need to hear. Here is a quote from Peterson:

” People talk about steep learning curves. I was embarked on a steep unlearning curve. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened. Prettyfeather gave me the story that provided a text for the extensive unlearning before me, the unlearning that was necessary to clear the ground for learning that God at work—not I—was the center of the way I was going to be living for the rest of my life. Inappropriate, anxiety-driven, fear-driven work would only interfere with and distract from what God was already doing. My “work” assignment was to pay more attention to what God does than what I do, and then to find, and guide others to find, the daily, weekly, yearly rhythms that would get this awareness into our bones. Holy Saturday for a start. And then Sabbath keeping. Staying in touch with people in despair, knowing them by name, and waiting for resurrection.”

Wow. Anxiety driven, fear driven work would only interfere with and distract from what God was already doing.
In some ways I think Covid put us more directly into anxiety and fear driven work. The constant push and pull to “program our way out of this”, to go back and “do those things we always used to do” is so strong. I really don’t want to be the chief programmer of an organization. But also, what is my role in saying no, that’s not why we are here or what God is calling us to do and be, no matter how comfortable it may seem, how reassuring if everything will just go back to “normal”, which as I learned post-Katrina, normal is just a setting on a washing machine?