Five days of silence ... easy. So I thought.
I was wrong. It's more especially difficult when everything seems a-okay.
My first two silent retreats were both three days. Those times, God knows, how much I needed to retreat.
But this time around, it wasn't at first, what would seem something I really really need. Despite that, I still had myself commit to it, even "leveled up" - from three days to five days. I thought, three days is no challenge.
So to retreat began.
The first two days, I had doubts, questions, and even serious thoughts of just leaving on the third day for I could no longer endure the silence and what seems to be "nothing" that's happening. I was, in a way, boastful thinking that I already knew what God would tell me. I thought, "What's new, my Lord? Here we go again."
I felt at that moment, nothing was gonna happen anyway. Retreat is just something I compelled myself to do because, hey, I started with it for two consecutive years and how I liked it... why not continue it? Also, I thought, this is just part of the circle of life that I go through then I do again what's supposed to be done after the retreat - that is, to live again... to struggle living again.
On the first night, I remember myself, literally going around the stone path circling the mini garden in the middle of the big garden. As I was going around it, I told the Lord, "this is my life, Lord... just going in circles. Not going anywhere." I didn't force myself to do that, it just felt so natural for me to do that on the first night when the silence had to begin.
Then I started feeling at home.
The lush greenery of the garden fresh from the evening rain welcomed me on the third day. Everything around me seemed so at peace. Birds twittering could literally be heard. The sound of the waterfalls surrounding the labyrinth was a music to my ears. I even saw a bird, taking a bath from the mini pond where the water falls.
The rabbit which I met last year, was freely moving around the garden.
That moment when I stepped out of my room, I knew I had a piece of heaven. That is home.
It was then, that moment when I felt most relaxed that He started talking to me - not in spoken words but in simple ordinary scenes that I would almost always take for granted - the fresh morning air, sound of water falls, the sight of a bird taking a bath, and the rabbit freely moving.
From that moment on, He never stopped talking to me. And I try very hard to keep listening.
And now that I am out of the Retreat House, all the more that I will have to try my best to keep listening.
