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I had been making retreats at the Hermitage for
many years before I finally asked to meet with the
oblate master, Fr. Michael Fish. Even then, the
meeting was, in my mind at least, for information
only and certainly not an expression of any kind
of commitment on my part. I didn’t even know
what oblates did, though I suspected that whatever
it was would be too much for me. After all, my
schedule was already packed, my life overburdened.
No doubt oblates were supposed to rise at dawn—not
just when they felt the need for some solitude and
silence but every day, just like the monks. No
doubt they were supposed go to Mass seven times a
week and follow the Liturgy of the Hours all by
themselves. Right—I would just fit that in
around my teaching, my writing, and my household
chores. What was I even thinking, really? I almost
turned back at the door.
Fr. Michael, after I finally made myself sit
down and talk, seemed to have an inkling about the
sort of mental churning I was going through. He
sized me up, beaming, then said, "The hardest
thing for you will be learning how to stop."
"Stop what?"
"That," he said, with an airy wave in
my direction. "Look how you’re sitting in
that rocking chair. Look at the grip you’ve got
on the armrest—good Lord."
I looked down at my hands, and, yes, my
knuckles were distinctly pale, if not completely
white, with the effort of . . . what? "Are
you by any chance," he asked me, leaning in
with an appealing twinkle, "the oldest child
in your family?"
"How did you know?" I was beginning
to feel flabbergasted.
"Because I am too," he announced
triumphantly, "and I sit just the way you do!
Look!"
I looked. He was being kind—he wasn’t
nearly as tense looking as I was—but I could see
the shadow of what he was talking about even in
his relaxed lounge. For some reason, I thought of
a Power Bar, those vitamin-and-amino-acid-stuffed
snacks that lean-legged runners chow down. Fr.
Michael looked like pure potential in a state of
alert repose.
"It’s been the hardest thing on earth
for me," he said, "to learn how to watch
a frog."
"A frog?"
"You know," he said. "A
frog." He made a little hopping motion with
two fingers. "Just to sit by the edge of the
pond, watching a frog instead of getting some
useful task out of the way. It’s been hell, let
me tell you."
This was what oblates did? I was getting
more and more confused. In the course of our
conversation, however, he revealed enough about
his own life to convince me I’d just met someone
far more than my match in the arena of the
"best" and the "goodest." Here
was a man who’d spent twenty-six years as a
Redemptorist priest in South Africa, ten of them
in a Zulu village where he was the only white
person in residence. Here was a man who’d been
face to face with death by lightning strikes,
death via disease, death through political
upheaval. In the midst of all this, he’d also
taught, given spiritual direction, harvested honey
from hives of killer bees, and fulfilled his role
within his busy order. Now he was trying, as a
Camaldolese monk, to learn how to watch a frog.
"Did you know," he said, "that
this is a Jubilee Year?"
I did not know. He explained to me that the
ancient Jews had instituted the practice of
celebrating Jubilees every fifty years, during
which time no crops were planted, debts were
cancelled, prisoners were released, and generally
speaking, all was deliberately allowed to go
fallow. "A year-long Sabbath!" he said.
"Isn’t it marvelous? What a perfect time
for you to start."
I gulped. Apparently, I was starting. I was not
doing so because he was pressuring me, either, but
because what he was saying was somehow so utterly
compelling—so absolutely appropriate to my
situation—that I couldn’t not respond.
Just like that, he’d touched, very gently, that
old longing of mine and brought it back to life,
full force. There is a better land, he seemed to
be telling me—a better place and a better time—and
you, personally, are invited to go there. This, my
dear, is how you begin.
The first task he gave me was simply to sit
outside with a glass of wine in the evening.
"You can do it when we’re having vespers,
if you’d like, but the point is, you are not
trying to keep to a rigid prayer schedule or force
yourself into a tougher regimen than you’re
already keeping."
"Then what am I doing,
exactly?" I asked, confused. This sounded
vaguely like my longtime practice of silence on
the bench under the jack pine, but not really. That
was a discipline, a commitment I kept each day
if I possibly could, and over the years it seemed
to be having a salutary effect on my tendency
toward nonstop talk. There was a useful purpose,
in other words. This glass of wine business, on
the other hand, sounded suspiciously like . . .
resting. A childhood nursery rhyme, oft repeated
by my mother, floated to the surface:
"Lazybones, lazybones, lying in the sun, when
are you going to get your day’s work done?"
It was a perfectly legitimate question, I thought.
I could feel the homesteader genes deep inside me
stirring in self-righteous indignation.
"It’ll feel very strange at first,"
Fr. Michael assured me. "Disruptive and
vaguely sinful. Ignore that."
"O-kaaay," I said hesitantly.
"And then what?"
"Then nothing. That’s it for awhile.
Just the wine. Half a glass, preferably during
sundown so you can watch the show."
He was right. It was disrupting—and
very interesting to realize how rooted in my soul
was the value of unending work. That term he’d
used—"vaguely sinful"—perfectly
described the guilty pleasure I felt during my
first intentionally taken rest in years.
Vacations, of course, weren’t for resting. They
were for hitting the road—figuring out exchange
rates or trudging through the woods with a pack on
one’s back. Weekends were dedicated to laundry,
yard work, grocery shopping, and paying bills.
Nowhere was there room—or justification—for an
actual rest in all of that. With any luck,
you rested when you were asleep. If not, you just
drank more coffee.
Three days into the experiment, I began to feel
a kind of loosening inside, as though I were being
slowly and gently unraveled at the seams. It was
both enjoyable and disconcerting. What was
happening here? I felt as though I were being
lulled into something I hadn’t actually agreed
to, that parts of me were starting to ignore, ever
so subtly, their usual orders from headquarters. . . .
This was a new world for me, this world of
resting. Very soon, I began to realize just how
bone-deep tired I was—and that this resting
business, which Fr. Michael referred to as
"Sabbath time," was going to precipitate
some big changes, though I knew not what. This
part made me nervous, when I let myself think too
hard about it. Mostly, however, I was too busy
adapting to the dawning of a new delight.
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