Retreat reflections

Friday, Aug. 07, 2015

Last weekend, I left my car with engine smoking in the parking lot at the Red Pine Lake trailhead, and barely gave it another thought until I returned from my hike five hours later. 

This was the first time I could ever have done such a thing. In the past, even if I could have forced myself to leave the broken-down car, I would have fretted the entire time I was on the trail.  As it was, I enjoyed the mountain scenery, ate my lunch sitting by the lake with the waves lapping at my feet, and didn’t concern myself about the car until I was almost back at the trailhead, when I wondered whether I would have cellphone service. (I did, and had to laugh when the tow truck dispatcher requested a cross street for my location. “There isn’t one,” I said. “It’s a mountain road. You drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon, and if you get to Alta you’ve gone too far.”) 

My memories of the morning are of the peace I felt sitting by the lake, the joy of spending hours in the wilderness, and the relief that my bad foot reacted to the outing with only soreness, not pain.  The broken radiator cap and the fact that on the trail I took a hard fall (not to worry, no broken bones, not even a sprain) are only worth mentioning because I was able to brush them off with “That wasn’t good,” rather than letting them pollute my entire day, as I would have in the past.

This sense of peace came to me during my recent eight-day stay at The Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos. I am still processing that entire experience, but I can say that it contributed inestimably to my faith life, in some ways that I can articulate and others that I can’t express in words.

I admit that I had low expectations going in, because my only previous experience with a retreat of more than a day was extremely negative. However, a priest I trust recommended that I go to Los Altos, and after a little research I decided to try it. At the very least, I figured, I’d have a restful week without telephone, television or Internet.

I did get plenty of rest, but I reaped so much more. 

Each day I met with a spiritual director, who gave me Scripture passages for reflection and talked with me about what had transpired during my prayer. 

I experienced both desolation and consolation. The first couple of days I had only trite intellectual responses to the readings, but the next three days my journal is full of jottings such as (while considering Matthew 9:13): “God desires that we show mercy to others, not sacrifice them on the altar of our self-righteousness.” 

That reading also led me to try to view other people as God does: When Jesus looked at Matthew, he didn’t see a tax collector, he saw a man who would follow him. What does God see when he looks at my friends, my co-workers, the man sleeping on the street? Would I treat them differently if I regarded them in that same light?

Because it was a silent retreat, the one hour with the spiritual director was the only talking I did, outside the responses during daily Mass. About 80 other people were at the center, but we didn’t speak, not even during meals. 

Such extended silence is something I almost never experience, but from now on I will actively seek it, because I would like to continue to experience the tranquility those eight days stoked in my soul.