Day one at St. Gregory’s Abby

I slept some as the train trundled over its tracks, swaying slightly, rocking me. When my eye lids spread apart, my gaze was captured by the mists that hung over the low hills. Young Dawn’s fingers streching out to gild them - making them shine in sacred twilight.

My mind was still cloudy, sleep was a forgotten lover and the day ahead a stranger. My mind all too readily remembered my true love left on the train platform, our children in her arms waving to me. I remember Foster’s body trembling like a leaf after a freight train roared by the waiting passengers, a bully taunting us with its icy wind.

“Daddy, I don’t want to ride on the train any more, All right?”

He couldn’t come this time anyway. This journey was for me alone. Just me and God - a solitary retreat. Do I really want to do this? I asked myself, thinking of home and family. No, I’d go home if I could, but I’m on my way.

A brother from the Abby met me at the train station. If my misapprehension frightened me on the train, his driving taught me to trust God completely.

Today I’ve prayed the hours with the monks. They chant so softly that I am amazed at the breath support required. Times in the chapel are peaceful, so wrought with the presence of the Holy that I shutter, like Foster before the might of the freight train.

The meals are simple an slight. We sit in silence listening to a reader regale us with the history of Hotels in America. That the monks would engage such an unrelated subject, reminded me what I had studied on the train, that Spiritual Direction is about finding God in all things.

After vespers and supper I hiked around the lake with my guitar and a book. I finally settled in the cemetery on a bench. I sang “This is my Father’s World” as wild turkeys and deer circled. As I was reading my book I heard a twig snap and turned to see a young deer looking at me. My face, the flash of my glasses, so startled it that it screamed and ran away. It actually screamed. It would then creep up on me, when it was within about 10 yards it would stare at me and scream repeatedly. It was like a barking dog. It was the strangest thing I have ever seen from a deer.

It is 9:30 and I am going to bed as soon as I pray compline. Matins are at 4:00am!