I have been on a lot of retreats, but never anything like this. The retreatant is to have no distractions—no internet, no telephone calls, not even books (except the Bible). “Boredom is your friend,” said Bryan early in our time together. You just have to trust that that is so, and discover what emerges in the empty hours.
The retreatant meets with Bryan very early in the morning Monday through Friday for a double appointment, and then returns home to the cabin that is provided for the duration. Bryan gives you a topic for that day’s reflection, very generally, in a very few sentences. For the rest of the day, apart from meal preparation and other necessary labors, there is nothing but silence and a journal. I filled 194 pages with handwritten notes—probably more than 30,000 words.
The cabin is located on Fox Island in Puget Sound. Here is a photograph taken from a fishing pier at the east end of the island, looking south.
I was greatly blessed by the experience. It was astonishing how many of the great mysteries of my life were solved. Patterns, feelings, habits, attitudes, fears, interests, and joys that have marked my life for decades, whose origin I never knew or understood, became clear and fit together into a whole fabric. I might even say that I have no major questions left, and have come back very much changed.
Sometime early in the retreat, as I drove back to the cabin (eight miles from the office), there was early morning fog through which the newly-risen sun was shining with spectacular beams. I took several photos; this one seems to be the best of the lot. If there is a single photo that could capture what Journey was like for me, it would be this one.
One foremost theme that came through my reflections, the journaling, and the appointments is that there has never, ever been a time when I wasn’t aware of God’s presence and guidance, from my very earliest memories up until now, even in the darkest and most painful of experiences. In my journal I called this “the golden thread”. In everything God’s timing has been flawless, even in dreadful reversals and times of suffering. In periods of joy but also in every single dark, agonizing, or confusing period of my life, there was always the “golden thread” for me to follow, which I knew was the sureness of God’s presence. Bryan said that if he could give one gift to everyone, it would be that.
It will take some time, of course, to assimilate the changes, and maybe to show them. I have one more week or so to ease back into normal life, and to reflect on the experience. I will be back at church on Sunday, November 18, and my sabbatical will be over.