Longings Neglected

In the September 2017 United Church Observer, in an article entitled "Yearning," written by Jan Dawson, she quotes Barbara Sheppard, who leads silent retreats at the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine convent in Toronto, who said this:  "We often think going on retreat will bring us into a place of stillness and calm.  However, it is often the times of silence and solitude, the context of prayerfulness, that can actually open us up to the buried longing we have been neglecting."

This quote resonated with me and my recent experience at Loyola House for an eight day silent retreat.  I went to be still and connect with God.  Instead, I discovered a deep longing within me, which brought a lot of tears and some deep soul-searching.

I realize now that the part of me with which I connected at the retreat had been neglected.  My life is very full, which isn't something I want to feel guilty about.  I didn't neglect this part purposefully.  When I'm working, I am very busy, and I enjoy the pace of my life, but in keeping up with that pace, I leave certain things behind.  Now that I am on a three month sabbatical, I'm realizing that these neglected parts are badly in need of attention.

Spanish mystic John the Cross wrote, "You fled like the stag after wounding me; I went out calling you, but you were gone."  During the retreat I struggled to feel God's presence and to connect with the Spirit surrounding me, even in nature where I always experience an energy that moves and fills me.  This time I felt empty and alone, even abandoned.

Much of my time away from work in recent years has been for further study or vacation with family.  I haven't been leaving much time for God in my life.  I'm realizing that God hasn't gone away; it's me that's been gone and now I'm struggling to find my way back.  So, I'm spending time in prayer every morning, pausing before meals to give thanks, my journal writing is more about my feelings than my thoughts, I'm reading more and watching screens less, and, in general, finding my way back to God, connecting with that presence in which "we live and move and have [our] being." (Act 17:28)

When I return to work, the challenge will be to find a balance between the busyness of the work I love and continuing to connect with that holy presence in my daily life, not waiting to find I've neglected it during my next sabbatical.