March 25

Oh, She's Talking to Jesus Again

This past summer I attended a silent retreat, led by the Jesuit community of Loyola Retreat House in Southern Maryland. The retreat was designed to last a week, but you could choose to stay for a weekend only. I opted for the quickie getaway. I was new to this type of meditation and unsure of my ability to remain silent (even through meals) for a long period of time.

I felt pretty sure of myself during the non-silent opening sessions: worship, communal dinner, and breaking into small groups with our spiritual director to discuss the retreat process. Piece of cake. The retreat grounds were lovely, the food wasn’t bad, and I met some really interesting nuns. I even liked the coziness of my single room – sparse but clean.

Our director told us the main reason for keeping silence was to give Jesus an opportunity to talk to us without our being distracted. “You’ll be surprised when he calls you. It can be at anytime, day or night, and you need to be present to hear the call,” she said. “So don’t distract others. They could be talking to Him even when on line for the salad bar.”

“What? He doesn’t call back?” I thought, but kept it to myself.
By Saturday night I had the rhythm of the place down. Hand signals worked fine when organizing a group hike, and there was that one time during lunch that my tablemate and I conversed by spelling out words using our salad ingredients. But other than that I kept to myself, I swear.

And guess what, Jesus and I did talk. Boy, did we ever. Never once did I sense Him thinking, “Vikki, give it a rest, go read a book for a while.” We covered a lot of territory. Most of it fun, some of it painful. It was the most refreshing, exhausting, and spiritually fulfilling time I ever spent in my life. The best part is that I now know what it’s like to invite Him into my daily life. Our conversation never tires, and I rarely do all the talking. We just are. It’s great.

Why didn’t I know about this earlier? Does everybody do this all the time? Was it a big secret that I just didn’t get until now? Who knows! It doesn’t really matter anyway, because I’m where I need to be right now.

So during this Lenten season I’m taking a new approach. I’m going to just take it for granted that everyone else is conversing with Jesus during the day – while grocery shopping, while driving alone in the car, even while in line at the salad bar at TGIF. I don’t think I’m ready for a week-long silent retreat any time soon. “Perhaps when the kids are older,” I say to myself. It really doesn’t matter though. I know I can do a retreat in daily life just fine. It’s just a matter of stepping mentally away for a while to just be.

Vikki Clayton