It all came together so suddenly.  I had been thinking of taking a week to visit St Andrew’s Abbey, my favorite spiritual hangout, but wanted to look into a workshop rather than just going to for a week of silence and wandering.    As this thinking was developing in the back of my mind, I called an LA friend for a long-overdue lunch date.  Her phone numbers were no longer in service!  When I reached her by e-mail and discovered that she and her husband had moved to Arizona, she invited me to come to St. Andrews to participate in a workshop she was presenting based on her recent thesis for a PhD in Mythology from Pacifica.  It was the opportunity to accomplish so many delights at the same time that I could not refuse, even though the workshop was only a week away. 

            The workshop was really interesting, as it addressed the possibility of finding a new mythic vision for Christianity in the postmodern era.  I found myself in discussion with theologians, scientists, lawyers and educators about issues that are of deep concern for me as a pastoral leader.  It was both spiritually and intellectually engaging, reminding me of much of the fun of seminary.  I’d missed the long, heated discussions that raise such varied points of view, re-engaging our love for the Gospel and our love for our traditions even as we critique them.

            But we also went to prayer with the monks four times a day to sing psalms and pray.  The Benedictines welcome guests as if they were Christ himself, a Christ they acknowledge and welcome in each activity and quiet moment of their day.  It is always such an extraordinary gift to be able to drop into the ongoing stream of prayer and praise and the beauty of the place that the community tends with such diligence.  It enables a peace so deep it takes days to wear off.  I found I was thirsting for God’s presence.  How strange to be lonely for God in the place where God seems to be everywhere!  But here it was, the ache of loneliness I had not seen until now, the longing for the touch of God’s Spirit in my search for a call.  That touch came slowly through the week: in the silence after the singing, in the gentle sharing of our meditations, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, in the creation of a community around the Word and work we shared. 

            I sometimes imagine, as sit in my usual place in the morning, that the monks are singing Lauds and that my new colleagues are living their ordinary lives again, just as I am.  It is almost as if we had never come together for that week in July.  But that’s not possible.  We did come together to be Christ for and with each other, and though we may not see each other again in this life, we are all part of each other now.  That time, that place, those sounds, those people are still present as I go forward.  It’s how I found that God is with me on my vacation.

The air is like pea  soup and the sunrise offered a pink disk barely resembling the sun.  The fire in the valley to the north continues to rage, virturally unchecked since the 4th of July.  On alternate days the sky in the distance is filled with towers of billowing smoke or, like today, sends a pall over us that leaves throats sore, eyes irritated, and layers of ash on every surface inside and outside.  Firefighters from all over the West are here to fight this blaze, and when we see Forest Service fire trucks we wave, a small thank you to those who battle the danger.  So far, no homes are threatened, and backfires have stripped the brush from populated areas.  The fire eats up the wilderness virtually unchecked, a specific strategy to return it to its natural cycle of cleansing and renewal.  The logic of such a strategy is clear, but not always reassuring to M, who lives at the mouth of the canyon that connects the valley to the coast.  If the fire turned in this direction, at it current pitch, there is little even the best strategy could do to stop its ravenous progress.  So we think about what we would save in this wonderful house, recently remodeled and filled with our most dear possessions.  And we wonder where we would go if forced to flee.  We listen to the helicopters and air tankers fly in and out of the nearby airport and realize that we live in hope.  Every morning is a promise that today will bring us something of value.  Every day it is possible to be grateful for what is as well as what isn't happening to us.  And every day we are reminded that nature is not always beautiful, that creation suffers and grieves even as it survives.  It is humbling and frightening.  I want to talk about joyful things: about a classmate's new call to a parish and about the conversations that are happening between parishes in my own community.   Maybe tomorrow when I can see the sky again.