Genesee of A Soul: March Break With Monks by C.C.

           

March Break With Monks '12

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Prior to March Break middle school hallways are sheer chaos, this is what it often feels like in anticipation of one week off. Teachers pleasantly passing one another discussing their holiday plans of lavish vacations or just looking forward to quiet days spent with their families. Some friends of mine often gave their time to more work, more students, and more teaching during their break. These were those who were always "on". I admired them but I knew in so many ways it was time for me to log off.

I selectively shared my March Break plans with some coworkers. Here I was a young woman heading off to a monastery with a bunch of monks for the March Break, how does one ever share this casually in passing?  There is no simple way to present it. The length of morning chatter in the narrow hallways not quite long enough to ever communicate the truth of it all, nor is it easy water cooler conversation. Mindful of my position teaching in the Public School Board I also didn’t want to pierce that political line and cause discomfort. There always seems to be a public silence around the sacred; lingering somewhere between timid false ignorant humility and a fear of radical over-zealousness. At this time in my spiritual life I just wasn’t ready for the questions.

I was so desperate for this time away. I was not running from anything but running toward God. I had undoubtedly given my time off to feed the emptiness of sin before: the parties, the resorts, the lust, all of it now were memories of a life I no longer lived, but one that very much lived in me and served as a reminder of God’s radical love and transforming merciful grace.

I owed everything to God and I had a lot of time to make reparation for.  A one week retreat would only be grazing the surface but I so desperately needed it so that He could dwell deeper within me, or rather, so that I could find Him already there.

I packed simple for retreat, I mean not as simple as a walking staff, and I did have a couple bags for my journey. I figured I would want to be comfortable, I was also mindful of the fact that I was going to an environment with many holy celibate men. I made sure to bring modest clothing, although conversion is a lengthy process and at this time in my life I admit that while my heart was undergoing some serious transformation, my closet needed its own conversion. I opted for sweats, soccer track pants, and some hoodies.

I left for Genesee in the afternoon following Mass in the morning and a brief lunch with Carmen. Then I was off, I drove blaring some new Bruce Springsteen music as if hanging on to some sense of noise before the apocalyptic foreign silence of retreat.

The drive was smooth and liberating. I could not deny the inner peace and excitement that overtook me in anticipation of this retreat, yet there was some fear too. Fear perhaps of the unknown spaces that would open up within me, or of what God was asking of me. Peace was greater than this fear though and that is what kept me willing and open.

I crossed the border with ease, although the U.S. customs man did look at me like I had three heads when I told him where I was going. I was used to crossing the border for teacher’s college some years prior, but I’m sure seeing a young woman driving a two door Honda Civic, saying she is heading to a monastery for the week seemed rather misplaced. Surely, more women of my caliber were seemingly flooding the border in pursuit of the latest U.S. shopping rates and such, I was in pursuit of God.