Silence Spoken Here
Finally! The post everyone has been waiting for! The news everyone wants!
Did Lindsey survive her first ever Silent Retreat?
Yes. I am actually capable of keeping my mouth shut. Granted, I spent most of the 7 hour car rides there and back with it open, but honestly who can blame me for that?
The retreat was… incredible. The location… perfect. The monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani are in a word, adorable. Check out their website, although I warn you, it's not very well designed. We prayed the Liturgy of the Hours with them 7 times a day, chanting the Psalms in alternating sides. They had a sign in the elevator: "Retreatants, when singing with the monks, a bit lower on the Volume and pick up the pace a bit." I think the monks have perfected the talent of singing without opening their mouths, it was sometimes very difficult to tell which side was singing and therefore when to join in yourself. I finally found a monk with a beard that wiggled when he sang, and I used him for the rest of the weekend as my test monk.
I spent a lot of time hiking around their awesome woods and fields. I even sketched a bit! They had an awesome pair of statues up in a little glade representing the Apostles sleeping in the garden and about 50 feet up the path was a beautiful statue of Jesus praying in agony. Very beautiful and moving. The atmosphere of the place is very conducive to prayer and I've been keeping the spirit of the retreat in my morning prayer times (that I've resurrected! hoorah!) I can't wait to go back.
The Abbey:
The Agony in the Garden:
Did Lindsey survive her first ever Silent Retreat?
Yes. I am actually capable of keeping my mouth shut. Granted, I spent most of the 7 hour car rides there and back with it open, but honestly who can blame me for that?
The retreat was… incredible. The location… perfect. The monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani are in a word, adorable. Check out their website, although I warn you, it's not very well designed. We prayed the Liturgy of the Hours with them 7 times a day, chanting the Psalms in alternating sides. They had a sign in the elevator: "Retreatants, when singing with the monks, a bit lower on the Volume and pick up the pace a bit." I think the monks have perfected the talent of singing without opening their mouths, it was sometimes very difficult to tell which side was singing and therefore when to join in yourself. I finally found a monk with a beard that wiggled when he sang, and I used him for the rest of the weekend as my test monk.
I spent a lot of time hiking around their awesome woods and fields. I even sketched a bit! They had an awesome pair of statues up in a little glade representing the Apostles sleeping in the garden and about 50 feet up the path was a beautiful statue of Jesus praying in agony. Very beautiful and moving. The atmosphere of the place is very conducive to prayer and I've been keeping the spirit of the retreat in my morning prayer times (that I've resurrected! hoorah!) I can't wait to go back.
The Abbey:
The Agony in the Garden:
posted by Lindsey at 6:02 PM
6 Comments:
I heartily concur with the request to keep up the pace of the chanting, but why do they want you to sing quietly? That I don't quite understand.
It's wonderful that you could make the retreat. Go Linds! Internalize what He was telling you. Keep praying hard.
Good job, I confess I doubted you a bit. Singing quietly - perhaps because of the "silent" aspect of the retreat? Sing too loudly and you'll hurt their ears so unaccustomed to loudness?
They want us to sing quietly because they sing quietly. It's not like we were whispering, it was just quiet. Hard to explain. It's a very quiet atmosphere, they're not belting out their phrases, just chanting them. Their prayer times are not at all about the music, plenty of the brothers have… questionable singing talent. I think it would have been more difficult to make it such a prayerful experience had Joe Shmoe from Tennessee singing just his half of the psalms at the top of his lungs. My two cents.
Well, maybe they shouldn't accept brothers with questionable singing talent. . . seriously, where are their priorities?
I've only been to Gethsemane once, about six years ago, maybe, and I have wanted to go back every since. It is a beautiful place.
Also, I went on a walk with Beth when I was there, and saw those statues you mentioned. Except as we were standing there admiring them, we happened to glance at their feet and noticed a gigantic, black snake curled there, basking in the sun. It was cool, but we got out of there pretty fast. I don't know what kind of snake it was, but it was certainly the largest I've ever seen in the wild. I'd guess it would have been about four feet long.
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