It's my birthday

I'm grateful for the gift of the year past - with all the challenges and lessons of beauty and loss - with the attendant moments of grace in both.

I need nothing - and what I want is either easily attainable - or easily relinquished.

Last year, I gave myself the gift of time apart - a weeks retreat in a Trappist monastery only a few hours away.

The chance for silence, for participating in ancient rituals and rhythms of a prayerful, contemplative life, allowed me to find a new rhythm for my own life ... and you can't ask for a better gift than that!

So I'm headed back.

"Reflection must be reserved
for solitary hours;
whenever she was alone,
she gave way to it as the greatest relief"
Jane Austen

I'll be unplugged, although I think I have some posts already scheduled to be posted in my absence... if the posts are sporadic, you'll know why...

I'll be back - definitely older and, hopefully, wiser!

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied,
'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God;
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

Minnie Louise Harkins