Disconnected

I have returned home after being in Maine to attend a week-long silent retreat again this year at Living Water Spiritual Center in Winslow. This is a picture of room #8, my home-away-from-home for seven days. In it, I received what Spirit had to offer.

I felt disconnected this year as I headed for the retreat center. And dragging along behind that feeling came guilt that I felt this disconnection at all. Somehow it seemed to me that I should be in a heightened state of spiritual connectedness as I walked into the building; a symbol, sort of, of my right to be there, of my religiosity. The center was once an active novitiate for the Sisters of St. Joseph. Now ecumenical, it is sponsored by the Sisters and feels and functions primarily Catholic. As I drove to Winslow, I pondered why I was feeling disconnected from God, people, and myself.

In one very real sense, my disconnectedness was obvious. I was sick. Only three hours before heading north on the Maine turnpike I started feeling symptoms of the flu; wacked-out stomach, diarrhea, feverish. It was all I could do to get there without having to stop along the way. Any connectedness to my body was exiting quickly.

Then, too, my previous two weeks had been very intense, first hosting my daughter and her three and four-year-old very, very active boys in my home, then driving them non-stop 18 hours to Maine, then stepping right into the care of my 88-year-old mother for a week. I was pretty pooped.

Before all of this, I had just finished school and entered into the transition between school and professional life. Emotionally, I was drained by the middle of May.

So, as I lay on my bed that first 36 hours of the retreat, not able or even wanting to eat, drink, walk or read, I stared out the window and wondered why I was there at all. And then my frustration began to build. First of all, I had looked forward all year to the meals Leslie cooks there at the Center. Amazingly healthy and tasty, the food fits perfectly the diet I maintain. Leslie even tailored the food last year to meet my specific requirements. When you experience that much silence at a time, mealtimes are a coveted event three times a day. Now, I couldn't imagine eating so much as one bite.

The view out my window that whole week was bleak. It had rained in Maine for some ridiculous number of days and the thick clouds offered only one color: gray, except for one mid-retreat day when a beautiful storm blew in. So, even if I had felt up to walking, I had no interest in being drenched. And the books I took just lay by the bed, as uninviting as reading the "begats" in the Bible. I was miserable. Couldn't eat, couldn't walk, couldn't read. I felt sorry for myself, lonely and drained.

I found the energy to write about my feelings in my journal, pitiful as they were. And then, about a half hour after that exercise, I had a sudden quickening in my spirit, the likes of which I have come to listen to with all ears. It was God speaking to me and I knew it. What I heard was: "Your limitations are temporary. Your confinement is self-imposed. Your mother's limitations are only going to worsen and her confinement is permanent." This changed my outlook for the rest of the week. I began to get better. The Center catered to my every need with all the tenderness a group of nuns could be expected to give. And on the last day I felt my first normal hunger pangs.

And I thought about my mother and the health issues that are slowly dragging her down. She had told me the week before that she really, really wanted to get down to the river. I understood that; the cove behind her house is a very spiritual place for me, too. But after my spiritual enlightenment in the midst of my bemoaning, I not only understood my mother's request, I felt it. I felt her pain at least in a spiritual sense. I felt it because it resonated with my own pain at least in that one moment. And it served to reconnect me.