Currently on retreat at Holy Trinity Abbey, New Norcia, about 150 km north of Perth.
I am spending a lot of down time - reading, chatting and internet browsing!
Strangley, all of these things are a preperation for prayer, both my private prayers, and joining with those of the monks in the divine office. Slowing down means less over thinking - as those who know me well are all too aware I over do..
What a change from wanting to pray so desperately that it was all effort and no grace, all me and not God...
Lovely too, that community member Linda, who works in New Norica, was here at the same time.
At lunch with the monks yesterday, we were privelaged to share the table with Terry Waite, the Anglican priest who spent 5 years as a kidnapped hostage of the PLO. A very gracious man with an open heart and a wonderfully healed perspective on his ordeal. Honestly, the people you meet in monasteries!
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