Being Still in Ireland

Last week I had the extrorindary opportunity to go on retreat to Ireland. Not realizing that my job gives me retreat time on top of my holiday time until a few weeks ago, I was lucky to find the place that I went to.

Holy Hill Hermitage is located on the northwest coast of Ireland near Sligo. The monks (both men and women) are associated with the Carmalite order and have two hermitages- one in Ireland and one in Colorado. Since the group originally started in Colorado, all of them are American (including the five "apostolic hermits" in Ireland). The hermitage was a grand old manor house which was owned by a wealthy Irish businessman in the early 19th century. The man eventually died and the family finally gave it to the Catholic diocese. The church in turn handed it over to this order of monks who took it upon themselves to rebuild the entire property. When it was the aquired, the house was in terrible condition and the stables were just walls with trees growing inside. 15 years later, this is a very different story. The stable area was turned into apartments, a kitchen, and a library that contained 6,000 volumes. The house has been totally redone and now incorporates many offices, sitting rooms, and a chapel. There are now about 10 cabins on the entire estate (5 of which the hermits use) and are rented out to retreatants. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this site is that these Carmalite monks did most of the construction and restoration themselves.

I flew out of London at 8am and got into Dublin at around 9am. After finding the main train station, I boarded a train and headed across Ireland (from the East Coast to the West Coast) and got into Sligo at around 2pm. What I did not think out clearly was the fact that it was a Bank Holiday that day (the UK and Ireland have Bank Holidays on specific dates- they are glorious things). My next step from Sligo was to take a short bus ride to the little village of Skreen where the monks were supposed to pick me up (though I had not made recent contact). Stumbling up to the bus station with all my things, I realized that no buses were going to Skreen that day because of the Bank Holiday. Wondering what my next step was, I called the hermitage and finally got through. One of the sisters answered and seemed surprised to hear from me. Apparently, one of the other monks had misread my email and the dates that I gave for staying there. They actually expected me a day later instead of the Bank Holiday. On top of that, she said that they usually don't take retreatants on Mondays because it is there "Desert Day", or the day where they have complete solitude and are out of the office. "You are one lucky young man!", she said. The only reason why she was in the office was to grab some keys for the hermitage vehicle to take another retreatant back to the train station in Sligo (because the busses were not running). Luckily, my phone call intercepted her while she was there and she randomly decided to pick up the phone. It was a day that I had the Lord on my side!

After arriving and upacking in my wonderfully furnished cabin which lay about 20 ft. away from a mountain stream, I went for a walk around the property. It was an incredible evening (the weather followed the same theme every day of the week- warm and sunny), and I found wonderful places of peace among the flowers, trees, and vegetables that lay all around. The hermitage lay at the foot of a large mountain which rose impressivly above our cabins. From the manor house, one could stretch out and read infront of a breathtaking view of the Atlantic Ocean and other mountains across the bay.

In my week with the monks, I participated in many community activities of gardening, mowing, and hiking. One of the monks, Brother Thomas, really connected with me as we both have a deep interest in hiking. Thomas was the first insulin dependent diabetic to hike the 2,000 mile Appalachian Trail streight through. He hiked it in 121 days!! "That is how I decided to become a monk", he said. "I needed to be with nature." Thomas used to be a public accountant before turning to the monastic life. He summed up his incredible story by saying: "You just need to be still sometimes." Being still was a very important part of my time in Ireland. For the first time, I could listen to the birds, water, leaves, and wind and really take somthing deeper in.

This proved incredibly true on my last day in Ireland when I decided to bike down to the beach (or "Strand" as the Irish call it). It was a cooler day and overcast which contrasted with the beautiful week of weather that we had previously. When I arrived at the beach I found that I was the only person there. This beach stretched about 8 miles down the coast and presented you with the most incredible Irish countryside views. Being suprised at the fact of me being the only one there, I first became sheepish and just sat near the car park and watched the waves come in. However, seeing this as an opportunity to be with God, I later got up and started to walk and then playfully run across the vast stretches of beach! As my footprints dotted the shoreline, I stopped again and listened.... The waves crashed along the shore and my heavy breathing were the only sounds that anyone could hear for miles around. Time seemed to stand still.

Sometimes it is the moments that we have alone with God that refresh us the most. For me, Ireland filled me with the most incredible joy and hope. We all need retreats I think. We all need to be with God in a new way.