Retreat Narratives

In late 1995, with the advice of a friend, I arranged for a retreatwith Sr. Cornelia Gust, a Benedictine Sister in Crookston MN. Thatfirst retreat came in January of 1996, a partial week set up totest the model. In response, I created a narrative tracing my waythrough the retreat, adding a selection of verse centered on thesurroundings. I decided to repeat the experiment in the Summerof 1996, again in the Spring and then the Fall of 1997. In eachcase, I gathered the experience in what I called a Narrative alongwith a series of poems that responded to the overall experience.Together, I found them satisfying and worthwhile. About 30 yearslater, I reviewed those narratives and the poems and decided toput them together into this review. It happened that I moved in1998 and tried another retreat in another venue and discoveredthe experience not nearly as helpful. I offer these four narrativesand the associated verse as a testimony to what proved to bea very helpful integration of the spiritual life that I had beenexperiencing into a more recognized presence of mind and heart.I hope that the sum of those four retreats so long ago allows myreaders to enter the dialogue inherent in the retreat experience.Sr. Cornelia and most of the sisters with whom I spent those weekshave died long since; these narratives give witness to the wealththey provided me.