The time away for retreat was very much appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed.  I was afforded all the time I desired to pray, meditate and read.  In spite of the bitter cold weather and lots of snow, I did venture out for walks, too.

The following is a piece I wrote on Tuesday afternoon, February 24.  It is a journal entry and a piece of my writing I hope you enjoy.  Do note: I'm no Shakespeare, that's for sure. Longfellow would certainly snicker and Emerson would be tickled by my scrawl, too.  But what I have penned, again, I hope you find of some entertainment.

'The library here at St. Gregory's Abbey, with its large, double-paned windows that stretch horizontally across the length of the room provides a most glorious vista of the terrain and landscape.  The meadows and fields slumber beneath the foot-deep snow, still untouched and unspoiled by human steps.  The forest is vast, deep and rather lonely looking:  these tall, gray and black figures that stand naked and bare, swaying slightly in the biting and bitter cold breeze that blows in from the open spaces to the east.

These are the rolling hills of western Michigan; where generations of Norwegian, Swede and Dutch settlers came to set up their future and fortunes.  All that is left of these early pioneers are the granite grave markers and the winding roads that bear their surnames.

Look--see--a female pheasant has come out of its hiding.  Too early in the year for chicks to be fed.  She is foraging for herself.  Instinct tells her where to poke and peck and push up at the snow to find perhaps some dried berries or a few brave, blades of grass that have survived, though now leaning sideways from the wind and the weight of the snow.  Her colors are muted, rather bland compared to the her male counterpart whose plumage is bright, bold and in spots and places almost iridescent.  He, alas, is nowhere to be found, that male pheasant, warm and safe out there in all that brush and bramble. 

I can hear the wind, better yet, I can see it, whipping across the slanted roof of the stone barn that sits in a small clearing in the woods a hundred or so yards from where I comfortably sit and write and consider all that goes on beyond these large, horizontal, double-paned windows that run the length of this library. 

The snow is falling; lightly, effortlessly, a ballet danced atop a crisp, white stage.  I admire the tall, leafless maple and aspen trees, the sturdy pine, all of them moving this way and that, yet ever so slight, in defiance or in approval, it is hard to tell.

It is only nature: challenging, evolving, recreating itself, giving birth to one season and to the next.  Later, I shall take some bread, tear it up and toss it out where the pheasant was last seen.  The brown squirrel that has been darting about undoubtedly will eat of this bread, and maybe even the deer that make their dusk pilgrimage will partake of this offering.  I would welcome the large black bird and the beautiful crimson-red cardinal that nest nearby to come to the feast.

And just like that, the wind has all but ceased to be seen or heard.  All is peaceful, quiet and seemingly at rest.  It is as if the wind came to life so as to inspire me, to enlighten me, to draw me in and to reflect.  It is late afternoon; perhaps all are now slumbering, relaxing, preserving their energy for the long, cold night ahead.  The sun is slowly sinking into its resting place, pulling down the evening shades.  Nature endures.  God looks upon all He created.  All is well in this small corner of the world, amidst the rolling hills of western Michigan.  Well done good Lord and thank you for your enduring and endearing gifts.'

 

(***written prayer requests)