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An amaryllis planted
as I began. |
Maybe the real question is what would God do with 30 days? My friend Fran posted a link to
this article about a British politician who, after making what was presumably the Spiritual Exericises of St. Iganiatius (a 30-day Jesuit retreat), decided not to stand for re-election.
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| My room when I first walked in. |
Sunday it will be five years since I
began the Spiritual Exercises, but today marks the fifth anniversary of
the day I got in the car on what I remember being an unseasonably warm January afternoon and drove to Boston, where I spent the night before driving out to Gloucester. The Boy wrote me regularly while I was in the silence, toward the end reminding how many more breaths I would take before I would be back home.
As I type this, it's been roughly two and half million minutes — some two hundred thousand breaths — since the silence broke on the retreat, on a bright and cold February morning. And while I didn't go home having discerned a seismic shift in my life, God has done a great deal of breathing in me since.
Oh Michelle... what a life changing experience it must have been. I'm glad that you saw that link, I knew that you would appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteTis a good anniversary to take note of and makes me think of how few I keep note of.
ReplyDeleteI haven't made the 30 Day Retreat but I have made the 19th Annotation beginning in September 2011 and ending in early July 2012 with my very patient spiritual director who didn't want us to hurry. It was a very transformational experience. What an amazing adventure it must be to make the 30 Day Retreat!
ReplyDeleteLynda, and I think, what an amazing adventure to linger over the Exercises in the midst of everyday life! It's an incredible experience no matter how you do it....
DeleteYour photo of the room brings back wonderful -- and very peaceful -- memories of a beautiful place. I was only there for a weekend, not 30 days, but it felt like a place very close to God.
ReplyDeleteIt's a very thin space, as the Irish would say -- and beautiful space, too. Did you hear they are closing to renovate at the end of the summer?
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