Back into Society

My dear friends I am sorry for the wait but i am not home and posting once again. I spent the last month in a cloister in Tyringham, MA. It was a beautiful experience which I will be sharing in pieces with you all.

What I would like to share with you today is how society appears after a month on the inside. First I must ask you to picture the beauty of silence and living for a month in the blanket of natural beauty. A month within a cocoon of gentleness and love. How do you return to regular society? Well, I have always been an extremely busy and active individual which comes from living in a very active family. At the monastery life moves at a slower pace so that each moment and each action can be thought about and used as a prayer. So, I return. Day one I arrive after a few hours of travel in airplanes and airports to find out that my brother is also arriving the same day. After breakfast, he arrives and we go home. Within an hour of being home, he is already out the door to a friend's house and I am joining my mother for a short walk and then out to the movies.

When we walked into the theatre i felt completely overwhelmed! It was blasting the sound into the little room so that one could no longer think anything due to the piercing noise level! I had never realized how loud movie theatres were prior to this point as I had become accustomed to the mere dropping of a mop seeming loud and disturbing! My mind dulled and the noise did not seem so loud as I settled into the plot and enjoyed the movie.

Continual noise and movement are so much a part of daily life it is astounding! A typical day is filled with continual noise. And it seems that everything is rushed! We run from one thing to the next in a blur of action! Family meals take just under a half hour normally and then it is off to the next event! It was a huge adjustment which seemed quite strange to be in. This has been my life for 23 years! Even more so in college as I ran from class to class, meeting to meeting, and ate most meals on the run! Only during Mass and my one hour of prayer did I stop to breathe and focus completely on the activity at hand. In one month of cloistered life, could I really have adjusted so much? The only logical reason why it would be hard after a single month to return to life as you have lived it for 23 years is that I am not meant for the life I have been accustomed to. The adjustment into the cloister was hard, but seemed normal and I was at peace the entire time. Coming home it seemed that my head began spinning immediately especially as we drove over to church and turned on the radio as we were also having a conversation! This world bombards us with noise and activity and yet as humans we cannot possibly take it all in and so much of it is wasted energy just decreasing our ability to truly focus on what is important.

I was able to reflect on this after hearing a story of a young man who was deaf. After 20 or so years, they were able to provide him with hearing aids. After a short time, he was found ripping them out as it was too much! He was at peace in the silence and was able to communicate just fine, all the noise was too much for him and so he opted to go without! What a beautiful revelation for me to feel so connected and find this inner desire to return to the silence and the peace which accompanies it. I may be a talkative and active person but I would give anothing for a whole day of silence where no conversations or radio or TV could take me away from my union with God.

Oh Lord shine your grace upon this busy world and give us a chance for silence amidst our high noise-level acitivities.