SACRED TIME

Whenever possible, I take time each summer in August to attend a ten day intensive retreat at St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. A movie director could not have created a more wonderful setting for this Retreat Center that offers a year round schedule of events for those following the practice of Centering Prayer. You sit in your hermatige with a spectacular view of the Elk Range, Snowmass and Capital Peaks both 14,000+ ft. at your doorstep. One of my most memorable times at St. Benedict's was sitting in my cottage in front of the picture window and watching an afternoon thunderstorm build up above the snow capped peaks and finally obscuring my view for the twenty minutes of violence that followed, with strikes of lightening that could be felt in the chest. All this while listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ode To Joy, with my headphones turned all the way up. Very special.

One of the fruits of my meditation that is slowly manifesting in my consciousness is that all time is sacred, not just the hours or days spent in centering prayer or whatever practice you call your own. The eighteenth century Jesuit Jean-Pierre De Caussade wrote beautifully about this in his The Sacrament of the Present Moment. Today a modern day prophet echoes De Caussade in The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Going to Snowmass is a treat I can not always afford myself, but it has helped me in the process of extending the longevity of "quiet mind" that I pursue with my meditation. I offer it for your consideration. A lovelier setting for "quiet mind" I have yet to find.

St. Benedict's Retreat Center