99/365 Spiritual Needs

Right before Easter, Hildegard asked me if I had a spiritual director. I do, of sorts, in Sr. Jean Frances. We email back and forth regularly and she is so centered and peaceful and good. I love getting her emails because there is always something I can ruminate on, live on, for time to come. Which is good because I'm separated from the monastery for quite some time--the sisters have moved into the guest quarters while the main building is reconstructed, so there is no room for oblates. We could go stay at Conception and commute, but they strongly hinted that guests would be a burden. I can accept that, in fact, I'm glad they are honest about their own needs.

Because I should be too. This Lent was in many ways so good for me. But in other ways it got lost like a breeze in a whirlwind. I made it to Sunday mass at our parish twice before Triduum. I was here and there and everywhere and it sucked a lot of life out of me. This is good to see, in hindsight. It is, in the end, important for me to have a regular spiritual schedule. Another thing I learned this Lent.

Hildegard and I, though, were standing in the parking lot. "Have you considered going down to Pevely, even just for a night and staying the next day? What about down on Ripa?" I knew what Ripa meant--the SSND compound--but Pevely only meant a defunct Benedictine monastery to me. I mean in a Catholic sense. Pevely is also the location of one of the Girl Scout camps, but I figured that's not what Hildegard meant. I queried and she explained. Hermitages.

And I heard all those familiar nagging voices in my head. I have a baby who doesn't sleep through the night yet (yes, that's right, he's 15 months old). I have, oh, not a single weekend between now and the 5th of Never that I can easily claim for myself. I just can't trot off...but why could I just trot off to the monastery? Because they put out the weekend schedule for the year every January? They got on my calendar early?

Eh.

So she told me she'd be asking me later about it. I drove home and got things in order. Went back that evening for a Holy Thursday potluck and she handed me a one-free-night coupon to this place in Pevely. She found it by accident as she unloaded a basket to take to church for the collection that evening. There it was. Lo.

One time in Borders Books, before I was an oblate, I was searching through garbage Christian fluff, things like "The Idiot's Guide to Mary Magdalene" and crap centered around the idea that Jesus wants you to be rich--trying to find something worth my time. Maeve was wriggling in the stroller and I was about to walk away when Sophia said, "Look, Mama, a key." There on a low shelf was a key, an ordinary house key. Sitting in front of Joan Chittister's In Search of Belief. Look Mama indeed. A key.

I do not believe in coincidences. So I suppose I'm going to have to find my way to Pevely.