Going on retreat is like going on a trip. In some ways it is like going on a trip like the kind you would need a suitcase for. But this time I mean like one where the only place you go is in your mind.

When I was in college, I went to the mountains with some friends. We rented a cabin and we “tripped”. We took our candles and our snacks and some acid. Nothing was how we expected it to be. But that was the point. We were used to things as they were. We wanted something different. Or really, we wanted to see what was there all along for a change.

I knew a guy who listened to his favorite album when stoned. He heard parts to that album he’d never heard before. He thought it was the pot that brought it out. It wasn’t. He was simply in a state of mind where he was open to new experiences. He was looking for something to happen. Those notes were always there. He was just too distracted to notice. With pot, because he was expecting something different, he noticed what he’d been missing. Pot didn’t do it. His expectation did.

Don Juan, in Carlos Castaneda’s books drugged Carlos for the first few years. He wanted him to see what the reality that was beside our reality was. After a while, Carlos got to the point that he could see unusual things all the time, sober. When he asked Don Juan about this, he said that those things were there all the time. Carlos was just too pig headed to see them. Don Juan drugged him up so he would stop paying attention to the expected, and start seeing things for a change.

We are all like this. We practice closure. We see what we expect to see. We look over what doesn’t fit unless it is glaring. We race through our days, unaware, unawake.

Retreats take things away from us, so we have to look. We have to take time off. We have to slow down. We have to be, alone, quiet.

We sit waiting for something to happen. Our senses are wide open. Will Jesus talk to us? Will we see hear smell touch taste differently? How will we be after? What will happen?

We sanctify this time. We set it aside, expectant, hopeful.

What if we did this all the time?

God is constantly present. God is constantly communicating with us. We just have to slow down and listen.

Wait with me. Watch with me.

(Written 9-13-13. 11 pm, on retreat at the Sisters of Mercy Convent.)