10 DAYS OF SILENCE
AND MORE ABOUT BUBBLES!
(as mentioned in Sunday’s scribbles!)
“Ten days of total silence?” gasp my family in disbelief. “You’ll never do it. Won’t you be bored - or lonely? What will you do all day?”
I have to make a Silent Retreat as part of a Spirituality Course, it’s not something I have specifically chosen. I go in fear and trepidation.
Packed: inspiring books, kettle and cafetiere, duvet and pillow for comfort, walking boots, laptop, a beautiful new journal, a favourite fountain pen – anything I might need to relieve any boredom and be creatively silent. Provisions - electing to self-cater, just wanting to have a simple, light diet. And a small hip flask of something – I am Anglican clergy after all. It might help me sleep.
Arriving: scary for this introvert– but there are warm smiles, the aroma of baking. And a comfortable room. Relief. I rearrange all the furniture – comfy chair overlooking the beautiful gardens. Plug in laptop – oh, joy and dismay there is wifi. Temptation! Do I give in?
Sixteen retreatants gather somewhat warily for introductory session with four Spiritual Directors. Then it begins:
SILENCE
But also: excitement and anticipation. I’ve shown up – will God?
And so begins a new daily structure: saying the Divine Hours – the daily office with its prayers and Scriptures on waking, at midday and late afternoon, with compline at bedtime.
Mornings are for Lectio Divina, or Ignatian prayer, or an entire book of the Bible in one sitting.
Afternoons are long peaceful walks, sometimes with God, sometimes not. Followed by forty-five minutes with a Spiritual Director. Today he encourages me to use the craft room. I hesitate, as I’m hopeless at drawing and painting; so much so, I was thrown out of the art class at school. But calligraphy I can do; I practice using a verse that has been especially meaningful earlier, in different translations (the internet has its uses after all) It proves remarkably insightful.
Then I see them: BUBBLES! Little tubs of bubbles sitting high up on a shelf above the paints and brushes. Suddenly the inner child emerges; I run in the garden blowing bubbles - laughter and lament, rainbows and rejoicing, gratitude and God, all found in bubbles.
Evenings – and more bubbles. Long deep bubble baths. Relaxing, going to bed luxuriously early, reading, journalling, sleeping deep, in country silence and dark. And God.
God speaks - in ways I would never have imagined – through and in the bubbles, in this time and space and silence. It’s salutary to be reminded of how seldom I stop to listen to God, how seldom I play anymore.
There’s no specific Voice, but I sense his Presence; things are confirmed in my subconscious, He draws near in ‘daydreams’. And bubbles. All is gift.
Sadness now in leaving – ‘normal’ life strangely unalluring.
The room is returned to its former state, the laptop unplugged. And yes, I Skyped with members of the family once or twice. Perhaps it’s cheating; but for me it’s real, an important part of my life, and hasn’t detracted from the silence and solitude and specialness of Retreating.
Now I’m off to buy some bubbles.
The Revd Penelope Swithinbank attended a Retreat at the Sisters of St Andrew, Eden Hall, Edenbridge, Kent. (Sadly the Convent has had to close.)
Find more from her and her Retreats and Pilgrimages www.penelopeswithinbank.com