Spiritual Retreats

In my "quiet time" this morning I was reading The Sign of Jonas* by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. As I read about his rounds on "fire watch" throughout the monastery I began to reflect on my visits to the monastery and the retreats I have made there over the years. Each in their own way have been significant in my life.

It all began on a frigid February night. It was closing time. Glued to my favorite bar stool I sat nursing my beer as the owner cleaned up. Interrupting his chores he asked. "What the hell are you mumbling about?"

"I'm thinking about being a monk. I don't seem to be able to live in this world without ending up on a bar stool at 2 o'clock in the morning. My life is crap." I didn't bother to tell him about the blackouts, the suicide attempts, the blotched milestones in my life nor the deep-down loneliness.

"I've decided. Tomorrow I'm going to see a priest and find out what I have to do to become a Trappist. monk. I need to be in a monastery away from the world." Bob laughed. "Oh bullshit, you can't be serious."

After spending a few days at Gethsemane, a monastery in Kentucky, I met with the Abbot who instructed me to return home, put my personal affairs in order and return as soon as possible.

Long story short and true to my alcoholic reputation by the time I got home I forgot about becoming a monk. After a few beers and within twenty-four hours after arriving home in Illinois I sat on a bar stool in Detroit accepting a football scholarship to a local university. No need to ask, I'm sure you can follow the alcoholic logic.

Ten years later, almost to the date, after marriage, four children, Korea, and drinking that literally wiped me out I returned to the monastery. I attended my my first spiritual retreat with fellow AAs and I was hooked. It was the start of a routine of attending at least four retreats a year with my sponsor. Our favorite place was Gethsemane and since I moved south it has been the almost identical monastery at Congers Georgia.

The retreats in early sobriety were key in giving my spiritual life a kick start. Especially true for a guy who had reduced God down to a God if the is a God. Even my first visit in '52 was significant. Like Francis in The Hound of Heaven I ran away from God for ten more years until exhausted I collapsed and let God catch me. Years later I was informed that had I returned to the novitiate in '52, Thomas Merton would have been my Spiritual Director.

In '62 when I did return, sober if not a little nuts the retreat-master for the weekend was Father John Doe.** This was a significant to me since I listened to his records (78s) at my sponsor's insistence every day during the first few weeks of my sobriety. On this retreat he helped me with my mental and emotional problems by sharing his own.

*The Sign of Jonas, Merton. A spiritual classic being written while I was there in 1952.

**Fr. John Doe was the first Catholic priest in AA. He is the author of The Golden Books, Sobriety and Beyond and Sobriety Without End. At the time of the, 1962, he had been diagnosed with a "neurotic" condition. In '62 neurotic was a catch-all for the people not needing hospitalization, the "walking wounded."
JF