Day four: Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
Today is the last full day of my retreat. I want to thank
you if you have been reading these posts. I don’t imagine for a second that
there is anything life-changing in them but it felt like the right thing to
write them. I am leaving here just after lunch tomorrow so there is still some
time for me to enjoy.
I felt slightly anxious today. I can only come to the conclusion
that it is because I am going home and I suppose there is a part of me that is afraid
of losing the sense of peace and being the authentic me that I have had the
last few days. I have not felt this way for a couple of years and this has
undoubtedly taken its toll on my mental health and even on my ministry as a
priest.
I suppose that what I have been thinking about a lot is how
I take this back to “normal” life. I know that I have to make significant
changes to the way I have been leading my life. I have to have more healthy
routines and disciplines. I think what has really become clear to me both in my
own thoughts and in my conversation with my spiritual director is that I need
to have a sense of belonging and rootedness that I haven’t had for a long time.
It is not that I have to completely stop doing the things I
do or change everything about my life. I have made some very good friends in
the last couple of years and that is a blessing. I have a wonderful orchestra
that I enjoy playing in. It isn’t that I have to cut myself off from the world
around me. What I think it does mean though is that I have to begin (again) to
live this life at home: a life of prayer and contemplation which will feed all
else that I do. I have to replace some of the unhealthier things in my life
with things that are healthy.
I have had an encounter with the Divine in my time here and
have begun to see again who I am and what I am called to do. I am sure that
this is the only way I will have peace in my heart and feel that I am being
true to myself. What if I don’t find this when I go home?
It was as I asked this question that the words from Psalm
139 came to mind:
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from
your presence?
There is nowhere I can go where God will not be. It must
then be that I must live my life in such a way that I can find that presence.
Without it, things will fall apart. My (mental) health will suffer as it has
done these last couple of years.
I have had a glimpse of what my vocation might be. I suppose
it is now up to me to faithfully and prayerfully follow that path in order to
discern what the next steps should be.