Friday at the Monastery

After finally waking up and getting ready, we had the normal course of Matins, Breakfast, an hour break and Eucharist.  Monastery life is really about establishing a routine and everything seems to fit in among the main activities of praying and eating. 

Our final session of the youth workers retreat was late morning where we had some sharing, some song and then said our goodbyes for another year.  Some of the youth workers have been doing this retreat for 5 years (it's only my second).

After Diurum (Noon) and Dinner (Noon meal) on Friday, the monastery goes on a period of transition as one group (the youth workers in our case) leave and other groups arrive.  Three familiar faces are staying on (besides the brothers), a couple from Brooklyn and a woman from mid-town Manhattan all on individual retreats.  My transition was to move, I had to relocated from the main house to the Middle House (between the guest house and the chapel).

I was pleasantly surprised that my new room is over the cloister and looks out onto the garden with the huge oak tree (which was here longer than the monastery).  I walked down the hall to check in on another room and excorcise some demons still there, and then settled in.

Shortly after Dinner I had my annual meeting with Br. Adam.  He has become a bit of a spiritual advisor to me as we chewed over some decision points in my life.  I shared with him some of my current concerns - mostly relating to my pending divorce - and he nicely helped me to find God in this mess for an hour.  He keeps a blog of his thinking here... http://adamsmonkthoughts.blogspot.com/

After the meeting and move, I had some free time so I hit the gift shop.  This is the religious literature and trinket lover's mecca of sorts.  Anything an Anglican could possibly want relating to faith is in there.  Brother Mark, one of the newer monks, was manning the shop this afternoon.

I choose a suitable volume and headed out for my favorite Adirondack chair...

After a bit of reading, life started picking up again as other groups arrived.  The same church groups from last year are here again... the women's group from St. Mary's in Brooklyn, a retreat group from St. George's in Hemstead, NY, and a retreat group from St. Peters in mid-town.  It's going to be a great weekend filled with God's love!

Br. Charles gave the weekend orientation...

Finally, after dinner I went back outside to improve my Monastery at Night photograph.  Yesterday's version didn't capture the warmth of the place, so I took my tripod for a longer exposure.  This is better but I'm hopeful that I can talk Br. Julian (also a photographer) to help me "paint the monastery with light" tomorrow evening.