Friday evening six o’clock, and I have arrived at the destination of my dreams: the neighborhood monastery, half an hour’s drive from the ‘real’ world. I am delighted. What else am I? Late for check-in, sweaty from getting lost and rushing about, and in no right state to mingle with strangers. My mood is at a roiling boil. I will have to do some heavy redacting if I want to fit the start of this experience into my glittering fantasy of my first ever spiritual retreat. Somewhat dejected before my stay has even begun, I push open the heavy oak door into the small dining room.

We seat ourselves in near-silence around the table, nervous smiles on our lips, and obediently await the last traveler to start our meal. Even during dinner the conversation is sparse, and I don’t join in. We sit in twos and ones, spiritual voyagers forced into uncomfortably close proximity for the return of cheese on bread and sweet tea with herbs from the gardens. 

Chewing feels like a novelty when you and eight strangers can suddenly hear every crunch and swallow. While I am busy disintegrating the particles of my meal and my busy week, I slowly awake to the fact that I am now cocooned in the centuries of prayer and contemplation that have formed the exosphere of this holy place. I feel alone, apart. Not an unpleasant feeling, I note. That a place once removed from the bustle of “modern life” would unravel me was expected, but not that it would set to work with immediate effect.

While eating I feel a hand’s width away from Jesus, which is a quiet, joyous sensation. The evening sun prints the geometric pattern of the windowpanes onto the tablecloth, and I brush my fingertips against its textured fabric. My eye is drawn to the Jesus in the corner, ever so patiently waiting.

Afterwards, when the group has dispersed, an older woman speaks of her devotion to this monastery, and of the slim, Italian Jesus in the chapel, suspended on the cross above the altar. In the sparse morning light of the winter months while speaking the Lauds, the cross wholly disappears in the gloom, she says, leaving Italian Jesus floating above the world, free of the cross, arms stretched out to bless the pilgrim. The reverence in her voice strokes against an empty place in my own heart, and I leave the room for an evening walk through the gardens, admitting to my self that I’d never thought of Jesus as That Italian Guy.

I sit down on one of the benches overlooking the gardens and slowly exhale. The day leading up to this excursion has left me shaky and a little numb. My hand reaches for my book, then my phone, wanting stimulation, wanting assurance that all is well at home. Is it too selfish to take a weekend away when everything is in the state it is in right now? After trying all day to make peace with canceling my weekend plans, I suddenly felt such passionate entitlement to a break that I basically bolted from the house. In the five minutes of packing I forgot to bring shoes, but managed to pack seven books for two days… And wearing sandals in the rain at least keeps me from getting my socks wet, I try to encourage myself.

But there is little courage now, with the adrenaline worn off and my guilty conscience returning. I anxiously pull up my phone numbers, but then I don’t make the call. I don’t want to know if I should come home, because for the moment it does not feel like I can. I haven’t allowed myself to sit with my thoughts in months. I feel on edge. I feel like spilled milk, like a gift carelessly wasted. My body is vibrating with tension. So is my mind.

All will be well, I want someone to tell me. All will be well because you are loved and you are lovely and this world has room for you. I gaze across the well-kept gardens at the basilica. All is well over here, she seems to say. So why don’t you come hither?

The truth is that I have never attended Mass, or Liturgy of the Hours, and I feel shy when I enter. I have lit candles in churches, prayed and touched my hand to stone and timber, but all of these ancient places of worship remind me that I am little more than a beggar. As someone who grew up with Protestant expressions of worship, many facets of the Catholic faith are mysterious to me, and I feel foreign and out of place when I slide into the pew.

According to my watch it is five minutes until vespers. The Italian Guy is already waiting high above, as is the pianist, and a handful of believers. The silence rings out like an invitation. Immediately my throat constricts with the worst itch. As is so often the case, my social anxiety settles at the base of my throat and tickles with all its vicious little fingers. I hold my breath, sputter, cough. And again – like a car that won’t start. The sound harshly rebounds from every corner of the nave, ruining the contemplative hush. 

Do I leave? Do I stay? If I leave I won’t have the nerve to return! I sit in the pew, coughing violently, while my thoughts are engaged in fisticuffs. 

Lord, deliver me! I pray between coughs, asking for a lot more than a better breathing technique, and watch with relief as the monks file into their respective stalls in the choir. I have never seen such giant prayer books, each one splayed open to the according page. The harmonium’s first note sounds out, and with it the intolerable itching in my throat lets up, taking my inner pandemonium with it. Relieved, I sink into the music like a warm embrace.

The empty place where I usually store my love for The Italian Guy receives the sung petition gratefully for all it offers: tenderness, sweetness, hope, repentance. A deep, deep questing love carries on the monks’ joint voices. The smallness of the offering is heart wrenching and I burst into inconsolable tears; a mere candle lit against the horrific, swirling darkness of this world. My heart calls out to God… Does this witness even mean anything? Does it matter that a handful of men are training their hearts on Jesus? Does it matter at all if I train my heart on you?

Yes, this moment reminds me that it does matter. It changes things, because we learn by example. We grow up imitating the examples we are given as points of reference. If we want to grow in our faith we must train our eyes not only on Jesus, but on those who walk with him. What does it look like to live with Jesus? How do you form habits that withstand the trials and tribulations life throws your way? How do you keep strong instead of falling away? We live in times where many believers are giving up, hurt and demoralized by God’s seeming lack of response and care. The pandemic and its politics have led to revivals in some parts, and the closing of many church doors in others. There is an awful practice that has continued throughout the ages, where Christians oppress, persecute and abuse others in the name of their God. Organized religion has failed the most vulnerable again and again. Churchgoers all around the world leave church one day and never come back, their faith broken because of what the body of Christ did or failed to do. 

What is it then that will keep me coming back to Jesus, coming back to that faulty, infighting body of Christ? Where do I find deliverance and peace if not under the cross? And how do I find the encouragement to persevere if not through the fellowship and support of other believers?

There are no quick answers to the complex issues keeping us from worship, from relationship with God. I only know that it has been an uphill battle and I have often been hanging on by my fingertips. But as long as I am hanging onto Jesus the battle is not lost. So in lieu of quick fixes I keep listening and my heart keeps filling up with the goodness of God. It is good to praise God. It is good to adore and revere the one who made us. It is good to touch our hands and hearts to the Jesus on the cross, the Jesus risen from death, the Jesus breaking bread and healing us from sicknesses without and within. It is good to imitate his example where we can until the exercise becomes the necessity. Discipleship involves a great deal of mystery. Our God moves in mysterious ways, and so we are moved in mysterious ways and in unexpected places – but also in expected places. 

So let’s seek those out: the little chapel on the walking trail, the quiet park bench in the city noise, the creek near the village, the Händel’s “Messiah” concert at town hall, the Sunday service or the Monday prayer night. The Cistercian monastery. When we feel equipped – or better yet, simply willing – we go to the deep places, the places where we come face to face with the homeless, the sick, the questing, the foreigner, the hungry, the lonely – where we come face to face with Jesus in disguise. May we go places where we expect to encounter God, all while we trust that God can encounter us anywhere. God will come and meet us, but I believe he is pleased when we intentionally set forth to meet him in holy places. 

In our everyday life we can prepare a place in our own home where we specifically go to encounter God. This can range from a pillow on the floor to a furnished prayer room to the empty bathtub. We can all go now. Be in God’s presence now. If Jesus is in our heart, we are the temple. We can close our eyes and withdraw to the place where we meet God. We can travel without moving our feet.

Except that lately, I can’t. I can’t close my eyes and pray. I can’t sit and read my bible and know that I am seen and held. And when I say lately, what I truly mean are years, not days. It has been difficult for years now to pray, to rest, to continue, to trust. Sure, trusting God in our peace and at our best is easy.

How do we maintain relationship with God as a parent or a spouse or in our job, where we so often are in a constant state of spread-too-thin, a state of too-many-decisions-to-make, too-many-emotions-to-regulate, too-many-lives-to-keep-on-track? What about those states of rage and awfulness and despair, what about when we fell in love and then kept falling, what about friendships that crashed and burned, family histories that cause dread and tears, what about death and endings and beginnings and misunderstandings and being too much and too little and too loud and too quiet? What about trusting God in our shame and at our lowest, when we don’t want to turn off the screen because we have become scared of what happens when nothing happens?

I believe practicing humility (and I really think that it needs practice to stick) can subvert the hierarchies of power and corruption and cure most ailments we face in the modern world. We learn by example. We are allowed to step into the story, be a part of it. We have been issued an invitation. It is up to us if we go ankle-deep in our faith or if we want to learn how to swim. Ezekiel 47 offers a beautiful metaphor of how God is pouring out the gospel and Holy Spirit for all those who are willing to wade in the waters. And if I wanted to learn how to swim, I’d go looking for people who know how to do it. Who practice. How wonderful would it be if we could be half-decent swimming instructors for somebody else.

The offering of a handful of monks may only be one candle held up against the darkness of the world, but God magnifies the gift of the believer, just as the high-ceilinged Gothic basilica magnifies the volume of a beautiful song. The nave is filled with the magnificence of ethereal, effervescent melody, and I feel Spirit pouring peace into the thirsting hollow of my heart. I sit, relieved and overwhelmed by God’s love for us and by our love for God; I sip from the cup and bless the Lord for sustaining me. Even throughout the drought, my years of empty hands and wrong turns, God sustained me. When I wanted to give up and had had enough, the Lord sustained me like Elijah, like Hagar, like wayward Jonah, and I am thankful for it. I may only be ankle deep in the river, and I may not have my walk with Jesus figured out yet, but I know that no matter how far I fall back on the journey, I will never stop running after the one that came running after me.  

(pictures are my own)