Blabber Mouth on Retreat

I'm sure thousands of people have been wondering where I have been. Last week I had the great fortune to have a full week of retreat at Gethsemani Abbey. The miraculous part is that I did it on Monday morning the 22nd. Such a quick reservation is nearly unheard of, I can only thank the egregious weather in the northeast, midwest, and northwest for my luck in getting not only a room, but a room in the Guesthouse itself!

Your intrepid blogger only made it to Vigils twice last week, but at 3:15am I dare you to do it everyday. (Watch, now I'll get email from those who say "I always go to Vigils.") But what a difference a 45 minutes Vigils can make in your Christmas eve, and, of course, the Feast of St. Stephen. By the time I got into bed on Friday night I felt like a martyr, a martyr to my desire to keep that Trappist schedule. On so many levels it is the desire of my life to live there, on just as many levels it's my great luck that I do not. I have learned to be thankful and realize that I am exactly where God wants me to be. My 4-5am rising is early enough for me to get my prayers said and Lectio Divina completed, before the day starts up with a bang.

So I missed haranguing you all with my blogish thoughts. Happy Fifth Day After Christmas, as the LOTH so commonly calls it. They could have said fifth day in the Octave of Christmas, but nooooooo.

And no, poetry I didn't write.
Holy Sonnet 19
by John Donne

Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot:
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today
In prayers and flattering speeches I court God:
Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague; save that here
Those are my best days, when I shake with feare.