This will be my last cottage by the sea post. I will still be living in silence, solitude and simplicity whenever I can, but at age 85 I am happy and healthy, but it is time to step away some of the obligations and commitments in my life. Ah, maybe this will open up more silence, solitude and simplicity for me. I wish you the same. I loved knowing you are out there journeying with me. Love, Bobbi
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This will be my last cottage by the sea post. I will still be living in silence, solitude and simplicity whenever I can, but at age 85 I am happy and healthy, but it is time to step away some of the obligations and commitments in my life. Ah, maybe this will open up more silence, solitude and simplicity for me. I wish you the same. I loved knowing you are out there journeying with me. Love, Bobbi
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 Today is the second full day of my five day silent retreat at the Monastery of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) in Cambridge, MA. I've come here for several three day retreats but never for a five-nighter, helpful in getting into the rhythm of the daily office, which forms each day.
Morning Prayer: 7:00 Eucharist: 12:15 (lunch follows) Evening Prayer: 6:15 (dinner follows) Compline: 8:30 The only 'rule' we guests are asked to follow is to be silent, which means don't talk. But I'm here to deepen my faith, so why wouldn't a participate? If I just wanted a change of pace and the chance to enjoy an interesting city, well, The Charles Hotel is just up the street. Sometimes I don't post a picture to go with my daily quote. Why? Perhaps I don't have the time or inclination to search for one. But most likely no picture is needed. This was the case today. You get the point!
"The system that is not benefitting the poor is not benefitting us either." by Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra and Dr. Peter Heltzel.  A Woman in the Polar Night, by Christine Ritter.
From the dust jacket. In 1934 the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable life in Austria and travels to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen to spend a year there with her husband. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to "read thick books in remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content." At first Christiane is horrified by the freezing cold, the bleak landscape, the lack of equipment and supplies…But after encounters with bears and seals, long treks over the ice and months on end of perpetual night, she finds herself all in love with the Arctic's harsh, otherworldly beauty, gaining a great sense of inner peace and a new appreciation fo the sanctity of life. Born in 1897…She wrote A Woman in the Polar Night on her return to Austria from Spittsbergen in 1934….Christiane died in Vienna in 2000 at the age of 103. I'm loving this book, having chosen to ignore the cold, discomfort and lack of anything close to a gourmet meal, and instead to imagine the solitude and the simplicity of everyday living. Of course I ignore all the work they had to do just to keep warm, fed, and safe. Memories of my cottage by the sea, that's all I see.  Snow finishing up as I settled into my chair in the Angel Room this morning. A cough and a cold had me up at 7, two hours later than usual. In person church was cancelled so I attended on line. It all felt so calm. I'm going to have a day of stillness, a Sabbath.
Why don't I do this more often, just get up on a day without plans, and keep it that way? If I have to be sick in order to give myself such a day, I'll have to wait another ten years for the opportunity. Ah, the challenge of being healthy. Maybe I just call it a stillness day.  Hmm, stillness. During all the years I've written about silence, solitude, and simplicity and sometimes wanting to be alone, I've never considered stillness. Why not? It certainly goes along with those three words that begin with s'.
It's not that I thought that stillness was cover by, or synonymous with silence, solitude and simplicity. No, I just never thought about the word at all until a friend told me about Pico Iyer and his books and writings about stillness. Stillness has never been in my language repertoire because I have never been a still person. My body is always active, never still. I am not a still person! I get up, move around, sit down, get up, move around,…. No wonder I loved teaching kindergarten, a job where I could keep moving with the kids, knowing in my own body that they learn when active. Maybe I'm ready now to consider stillness. Although my life is busy these days, I have the silence, solitude, and simplicity that I need and can tap into it when need be. I don't expect that I will start being physically still, but I will consider stillness in the midst of silence, solitude and simplicity. At least give it a try.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Today I'm celebrating Martin Luther King Day. If you happen to see me putting on my visitor's badge to visit Laurie at the nursing home, it may seem like just some other Monday. But on this special holiday, I'll be celebrating what MLK suggested I do: bring light and love to my friend who is lying in bed, but not in darkness. And her love will drive out any darkness that may arrive with me. Love is reciprocal. Love has no opposite.
 I'm here in the Angel Room, where I am several times a day. It's my sweet spot in the house, the place supreme for me to find and practice silence, solitude, and simplicity. I hope you have your own place, special enough to have a name. You'll know because the name will have a history.
Il Studiolo (specifically the room build by the Duke of Monetfeltro in Gubbio in Italy, now displayed at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC) was the name I originally gave the Angel Room. According to Wikipedia a studiolo is "a secluded room intended to allow for quiet study and meditation. These rooms contained, either physically or in the form of artistic depictions, books, tomes, scientific instruments, and other symbols of knowledge…The small rooms would later be known as a hallmark of the Quattrocento, the art movement encompassing the first 100 years of the Italian Renaissance. Studiolo it was until my grandchildren started joining me early in the morning and noticed pictures and statues of angels. Without missing a beat, they asked it they could come to the Angel Room. What could I say? When two of them made me angels for Christmas, the name 'officially' changed. After all, nothing can compete with an angel, certainly not a studiolo!!  Silence and hearing aids, ah, what a combo. I definitely need the hearing aids. In order to gain their best benefit I need to wear them from morning to night, from waking to sleeping. But I also definitely need the silence.
Sometime there is just too much noise; not the usual sounds of life out there in the world, but of noise generated by my personal life--family, friends. It is then, when a ball game is blasting or when everyone in the room is blabbing away, that I take out my phone, open the hearing aid app and turn the volume down. No one notices, nor do they care, that I'm not participating. Ah, what a combo.  A peaceful morning, My calendar is blank for the day, which means it is a "My Day." That sounds rather selfish, and in some respects it is, although I don't consider it so. It's a day of silence, of corresponding with a few friends, of writing what's on my mind, of lying on the couch reading, and of sitting in the silence.
It's that sitting in the silence that has particularly spoken to me today; Claude Monet cherished it, too: "What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence." As I sit in the Angel Room, the winter colors are keeping my heart awake. Sunlight on the maple tree, shadows on the lawn and driveway, cozy homes--all so alive, exuding colorful silence. This is a good My Day, a time of being, not doing. |