of retreats and marathons

Every half marathon or other endurance race I've run has a familiar pattern: I warm up in the first kilometer, find a rhythm and run most of the way at that pace. Then somewhere in the back third or quarter it gets really tough,  everything hurts and I want to quit. But if I press through I get a second wind and then when I see the finish line I can sprint home.

Most retreats follow this pattern too, and so it  was with this 8 day (really 10 days) retreat in Griswold, Iowa, surrounded by gently rolling hills covered in corn and soyabean farms.

I had a great spiritual director who gave me some spiritual exercises to do (eg, read the healing of the blind man in Mark 10, meditate from the point of view of the blind man, then from the point of view of Jesus, then from in prayer sit with Jesus and let him as you the question he asked the blind man "what do you want me to do for you?"

But by Tuesday I'd just had enough peace, silence and prayer, and I wanted to get  out of there. Jetlag and poor sleep didn't help. But as always, pressing on in was the way to be faithful to Jesus and as so often happens, there was a breakthrough and the last day was the best, and sprinted on to the finish.

Comments

  1. Dominic16 June 2016 at 13:23

    I was thinking of you and your retreat experience while walking around the Abbey of Mont St Michel yesterday. During the tour we entered the chapel where I saw en exposition of the blessed sacrament. Eager to go forward to spend a minute I saw a monk there to the side in quite prayer. I thought this guy must have some great control to cancel out the noise of the crowd and meditate. I guess your inner voice must be yelling at you after a few days of quiet. Your subject to meditate on was a a good one so often we can get caught up in the what somebody can do for us and not what can we do for them.

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