Hunting

It’s easy to show up after a mean­ing­ful week­end at the Jesuit retreat house at DeMon­tre­ville, out­side Lake Elmo Min­nesota; spend­ing the time stum­bling through a sliver of the “Exer­cises” Ignatius Loy­ola wrote cen­turies ago; three days ‘dis­posed’ to soli­tude, silence, self-reflection.

Half-way through cof­fee with a fel­low pil­grim on the Mon­day morn­ing after, a break­through occurred — why am I going through the reg­u­lar rou­tine this morn­ing feel­ing com­pletely odd with no clue about why? I was relaxed, reflec­tive and really in an amaz­ing place — but oddly uncomfortable.

Then it hit me, I left what­ever resent­ment, anger and  fear I had back there, in the retreat cen­ter. So I’m uncom­fort­able with what I received; which was what I was hunt­ing for, only I didn’t know it; I don’t know how to be com­fort­able in the present. I’m adjust­ing, still feel­ing great today although I know it’s like one of my pals said about all the fear and resent­ment being gone, “Don’t worry, it’ll be back before You know it!”

True enough.

It’s deer hunt­ing sea­son, so over the retreat week­end before any­one goes out on the grounds they grab an orange vest to avoid being acci­den­tally mis­taken for a four-legged buck. Dur­ing my walk on Sat­ur­day I spot­ted a fel­low ‘pil­grim’ across the field; in a blaz­ing orange vest search­ing — hunt­ing — for what the retreat might offer — blaz­ing orange and in the hunt!

I know I received more than I expected at DeMon­tre­ville and every­thing I needed.
I hope he did too.

This is a great time of the year for me to take a lit­tle extra time and do some reflect­ing on what’s going on, where are things headed, what I have to be grate­ful for. Maybe it is for You too.

If so, good hunting!