I'm spending the night at the old Jesuit novitiate. I had a good salad with eggs and cheese for dinner, with an eye to a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. As I bussed my dinner plate I watched the last piece of an amazing chocolate cake walk away with a high school student here on retreat (I'm wondering how silent the 40 of them are going to be tonight...)
Sometimes you're asked to surrender a bit than you might have wanted to...
(and yes, I'm blogging from the Jesuit computer...)
that computer has seen my hands. I have been there with HS students and quiet has not always been the case, but one can let it ruin a day, or let it be a bit annoying, or one can find joy in it... maybe all three can be experienced.
ReplyDeleteI hope you fall into stillness no matter what noise surrounds you.
Silence without chocolate can be pretty rough.
ReplyDeleteJesuits must not have taken Scrabulous as a Lenten discipline :)
ReplyDeletegannet girl, My wonderful Jesuit director conjured chocolate at the end of our meeting...so it was not a completely penitential event!
ReplyDeleteThe HS students were actually reasonably silent -- far better than the priests on retreat in the spring. The noise yesterday reminded me of the waves at the shore, you'd hear the rumble as they came down the hall, then the roar as they passed by to head outside to run off steam, the whoosh as they came back into their rooms! All in all, a stilling moment, if not of the utter silent sort.
And it's nice to know that computer links can be of the tangible sort!!
I have to admit, I didn't mention to the Jesuits that I was playing Scrabble for Lent....