Slow Writing

 A year ago, maybe two, I received a real letter from Michelle.  On paper, in an envelope, with a stamp. 

And thus we commenced an erratic correspondence, one in which the U.S. Postal Service is a partner.

Then I began to receive occasional envelopes from Cindy and from Wayne. Sometimes mail arrives from the Karens East and West.  And from others I am forgetting to name.  And now Fran is threatening to send postcards from her vacation.

What gives?  I communicate with all of these people in a myriad of ways: blogs, Facebook, email, telephone, even in person.  Regular mail is surely the slowest and least efficient option.

There is something about a real letter, a letter that began in the hands of a real person, slipping through the mail slot and onto the floor of the front hallway, which conveys that communication between individuals is a matter of great moment.  There is something evocative and compelling about words formed by hand in ink, something lacking in words that appear on computer screens.  Letters are accompanied by more than the widest variety of software fonts can offer:  I am touched by the texture and weight of the envelopes, and  I delight in the images on the cards, images that convey those little extras about the writers that their words do not entirely encompass.

Three years ago I received hundreds of cards and letters in a matter of weeks.  Some of them still arrive on occasion, from people who have just heard the news, or who needed months (or years) to work their way up to writing.  I have been astonished by the eloquence of those letters.  They are utterly beautiful.  I treasure them all.  (And those somewhat delayed?   Great gifts.  It is genuinely moving and comforting to read that  others were so stunned and saddened that they, too, were immobilized.  Allies.)

I am not the best of regular mail correspondents.  But I am inspired to improve.

If we can write real letters so gracefully during times of tragedy, why not during times of joy, or adventure, or consternation, or complexity, or  just plain ordinary life?

I think that I like this slow mail movement!

My Retreat Begins

 Yes, I've been back for several days, as you know if you've been reading.

And last night, very late, many of the matters which had swirled through my prayer during my week of silence, merging into unexpected and unmanageable patterns, began to disengage from one another, becoming distinct and yet allied streams of . . . well, "understanding" might be too ambitious a word.  But perhaps the potential for understanding.

Thus, with a new clarity of vision emerging, I would say that my retreat is now underway.

When I return from a retreat, people often greet me with words suggesting that they envy my having had such an opportunity to "relax."  That hasn't been my experience.  (As one woman said during the final Mass last week when, in lieu of a homily, retreatants are invited to comment on their experience, "Who ever knew that relaxation could be so hard ?!")

What I have found instead, over the course of the weeks and months that follow, is that my retreats have in fact, been consoling.  (With one major exception.) Ignatius describes consolation as "every increase of faith, hope and love and all interior joy . . . filling [one's soul] with peace and quiet in its Creator and Lord."

It's no secret that every dimension of my life has been challenged in every way since my son's death.  And that the disturbing ten weeks of double vision this past spring, although traceable to a physical cause, seemed in their confusion and disorientation to reflect my inner life.

How consoling, then, to find now that after a week of having been challenged, both spiritually and psychologically, the sorting hats are settling into place.

Last night, as I fell asleep, I began to dream about an encounter with a very large bear, and awakened in alarm, only to hear the trail of a voice from my not-quite-completed dream say, "But this is wonderful!  Such power and grace."

I looked at the ceiling for awhile and thought about Faulkner's story of The Bear and concluded, Yes, here I am.  Face to face with power and grace.

Image: Reflecting pond at Wernersville.

Norway

I was about to turn thirteen when I visited Norway with my grandmother, who had concluded that the way to see the world was to grab her grandchildren and go.  What I particularly remember about Norway was the glittering beauty of the fjords, and falling in love with the city of Bergen (pictured).

When you send your children, even your young adult children off to camp (and The Lovely Daughter is at this moment spending her fourth summer as a counselor at the camp of her childhood, and mine), you worry about accidents ~ drownings, climbing falls, bear errors in judgment.  When they are young adults, you worry about human errors in judgment ~ young people on mountain roads after nights off in local bars ~ and, as last year revealed, young people in flip-flops stepping on copperheads stretched out on warm pavement in the night.  I suppose that you don't worry about those things on small Norwegian islands, but there are probably other possibilities.

As my own experience has revealed, you don't worry much about the things that actually come to pass.  A suicide.  A deranged gunman.

I look at the images of those parents, who have to absorb the sudden shock of the deaths of their beloved children, knowing that they died in fear, far from those who love them the most, their futures abruptly curtailed, their presence ripped away, their beautiful shining faces just . . .  gone . . .  and  . . . there are no words.  Their lives are shattered.    Blessed are those who mourn.  Lord, have mercy.  

Are your wonders known in the darkness?

Retreat Vignettes

Morning walk ~ the sun came up at about 5:50 am.

Morning walk ~ Walter Ciszek, S.J.  is one of my heroes, and I spent some time re-reading his book He Leadeth Me. (Click to enlarge and read.)

Morning on the East Cloister walk.

Afternoon wanderings ~ Jesuit symbol on the altar in the crypt chapel.

The pool ~ as is everywhere on the grounds during a retreat week, a place of silence and prayer, afternoons and early evenings.

Late at night.

Visual Treats on Retreat

The first one: a beautiful design made by Wayne that looks like stained glass on paper, which arrived in the retreat house mail ~ well, I don't know when.  I looked every day, as Wayne had instructed me to do, and then on Sunday night at dinner a Presby pastor on retreat hissed at me, "There's mail for you!" 

I have not succeeded in photographing what I received, and I can't find anything like it on Wayne's sites, so you will have to be satisfied with the knowledge that it is a wonderful thing to receive a gift made by a friend when you are far from home and immersed in silence.

The next two:  My director commented one day that I seemed very much oriented toward the visual, and suggested that I take advantage of the art room and maybe make a collage.  I went down there that night, sure that I wouldn't last more than five minutes due to my painful wasp-swollen arm, but three hours later I had made a complete mess of the place ~ magazine pages all over the room and glue stuck here and there and markers tossed hither and yon ~  and produced a collage in response to the Suffering Servant Songs in Isaiah.  A couple of nights later I made another one as I rummaged back through much of my prayer of the week.  And so ~

The fourth one:  I seem to have purchased card stock in all colors and also glue and extra-thin marking pens, and I seem to have ordered a lot of my Wernersville photos in wallet size.    I have 15-plus  journals in which I've recorded my prayer life in writing  over the past few years, but now I'm thinking art in miniature. Something much more evocative than what I've ever done before.  I don't think my work is going to appear at MOMA or anything, but I do think it might be fun.  And prayerful.

Thank you, Wayne, and Bill SJ!

Retreat in the Heat

I'm back, and feeling quite disoriented as I try to regain my footing in a world in which conversation and television predominate. My prayer this past week brought its challenges, and also some moments of incredible grace.

Miscellaneous:

Two hours of nonstop talk with Michelle, who came out to visit with me before the retreat started.   We barely came up for air!

Hot!  Lots of prayer in and around the pool.  

Full moon and stars ~ magnificent over the midnight countryside.

WASPS, Michelle!  Two trips to the drugstore for remedies for massive welts.  One of those brazen insects attacked me on my raft in the pool ~ such chutzpah!

A skunk, an owl, a doe and her twin fawns on my evening walks.  And, Wayne! ~ bluebirds.

Talking breakfast the last morning.  On either side of me at the table, Catholic women, one a retired teacher and one an attorney turned college development officer.  Across: three other women, all of them priests in the Episcopal Church.  The teacher, who is 76, said afterward that she'd never shared a meal with Presbyterians and Episcopalians before!  I'm glad she didn't wait any longer.

I was invited to do the readings at the final mass.  Much sadness in the air, due to illnesses and deaths among those very close to some of the priests.  But much joy as well, as a small community emerged from a week of sharing God's silence.

Pictures, soon, I hope.

On Retreat

I'll be here.

I might come back in eight days.

(Or I might not.)