“What happened to Tom, we can’t get hold of him over the phone.” The many calls to my wife from our Bible study group members , make her put out a message on our Bible Study WhatsApp group, that my phone is switched off till the end of the day as I am in a silent retreat.
That day was my birthday, and these Bible study group members wanted to wish me over the phone.
While I was sorry I missed their calls , turning my phone on on later showed me many missed calls, I was happy to have this exclusive time with the Lord on my special day.
I chose to send this day on the premises of a Jesuit retreat house located on the outskirts of our busy city, providing a contemplative, silent atmosphere for those wanting to make an Ignatian retreat. Many spend 30 days at a stretch, some 8 days and some for a weekend. I was blessed to have got the permission from the Father Rector of the house to spend the day there.
Always a special place for me, as this was where my late Father attended over 43 retreats over the last two decades of his life. The spiritual graces he obtained here, helped him to prepare for the ultimate journey very well. We are in the process of compiling his various retreat notes into a book that we hope will be useful for someone, somewhere.
But I digress. Recently, I was struggling with a difficult problem. One that threatened to shake the very core of my Christian vocation. Greatly disturbed, I was unable to concentrate on the tasks at hand and make right decisions for my family and team.
Flicking through the Internet one evening, I chanced about an article about famous travel writer Pico Iyer, who regularly spends time in silence and solitude at a Benedictine monastery in California. I read many other articles by him , and saw some Youtube video talks, ,and noted summaries of books he has published on the topic, about the great benefits and clarity of mind he achieved by stepping away from the digital world regularly. By the way, he does not own even a mobile phone, so much does he want to guard his mind from the incessant digital chatter of the world.
Reading about Pico Iyer’s experiences, sparked in me the desire to spend my birthday in silence too, and what better way than with the Lord. In the retreat house, there were many other fellow retreat ants, most of them religious , who had been there for days. Silence was prevalent everywhere, even at meal times.
I sat before the Lord in the silent , serene chapel, burdened by my worries about what to do next, which direction to go, when gradually, I fell asleep before the Lord. I was woken after a while by the clanging of the bell that signified lunch time. Post lunch, spending some more time in the chapel, this time relaxed, a thought came to mind, a way forward, a direction to come out of the mess that I was in. This was confirmed by a senior Jesuit Father that I was able to spend some time with for spiritual guidance.
The way forward was clear. I just needed to follow it. You know what to do now, you can get back to your routine, the Jesuit Father told me. I was filled with emotions, blessed to have got this answer.
Just as I was about to depart the retreat centre, I switched on my phone and saw the barrage of messages. I started to reply to them, with a grateful heart. These souls really cared for me, they wanted to reach out and wish me and pray for me on my special day.
There really was no better way than to have spent the day.
Driving out of the retreat house, I resolved to pen down my experiences not for anything else, but to let you know that if you ever find yourself in a total mess where you don’t know the way forward, or you are burdened by anything, do take some time off and spend it with the Lord in silence.
You will surely get the answer as I did.
Very few people feel happy racing from one text to the next to the appointment to the cell phone to the emails. If people are happy like that, that’s great. I think a lot of us have got caught up in this cycle that we don’t know how to stop and isn’t sustaining us in the deepest way. And I think we all know our outer lives are only as good as our inner lives. So to neglect our inner lives is really to incapacitate our outer lives. We don’t have so much to give to other people or the world or our job or our kids (Pico Iyer).
