A Poetical Summary of my Retreat~ The Three Goals by David Budbill

The first goal is to see the thing itself

in and for itself, to see it simply and clearly

for what it is.

No symbolism please.

The second goal is to see each individual thing

as unified, as one, with all the other

ten thousand things.

In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

The third goal is to grasp the first and the second goals,

to see the universal and the particular,

simultaneously.

Regarding this one, call me when you get it.

I returned home from my Retreat on Saturday morning and have been busy readjusting to being at home; catching up on my family, cooking for friends, getting the laundry done, tending the garden and beholding with wonder my now elegantly bold and strikingly healthy looking corn! I have had little time yet to think or more precisely to integrate the experience I had last week; it is almost beyond any words currently at my disposal. So, I went poem-hunting to find something that might bracket the experience with sufficient fluidity and precision to capture the essence of it; this one is pretty good. I was companioned by Fr. Leo Cachet S.J., a Jesuit Priest who spent most of the last 40 years serving in a small village near Kathmandu, Nepal. He studied with the wonderful Anthony De Mello S. J. and opened an Ashram or Spiritual Center in Nepal that served not only the Spiritual needs of the local community, but allowed Leo to become fully integrated with the community he served, a people he described as "just naturally 'Contemplatives in Action' which is largely the 'goal' of Ignatian Spirituality; to be able to serve God and others in a contemplative spirit; able to see and be with "what is" and see God/Divine Mystery in action within all of it. I knew in an intellectual way, as an idea, when I embarked on this path three years ago that it would change me in some way that I couldn't anticipate. I never dreamed that it would so deepen my sense of 'seeing and accepting' whatever it is I find in front of me, or alongside me, without having a goal, a destination, an outcome, in mind that I was sure was the "right one".

The "right" goal is the one that is part of Mystery and therefore, beyond our control, prediction, or ability to define.

In a couple more days, I will be able to say more about my Retreat experience; I'm not in a hurry to capture it, or to spend too much time "thinking" about it and thereby labeling it or boxing it up somehow. Fr. Leo told me a wonderful story about something he learned from the people in Nepal. They never tell their children what something "is". If the child sees a rose, a tree, a rock, a creature and asks "what is that", they are only answered by being told to "look closely". No word, label or file to sort the experience into. Fr. Leo told me that as soon as you tell a child what something "is" you destroy their ability to image it, to experience it as it is, and for itself. The people of Nepal educate their children experientially and only much later are things named and classified. The "object" of curiosity is experienced first as an image and kept in that realm until more concrete thinking is developed and needed.

And I thought I was so original as an "unschooling parent"! I was humbled; utterly confounded and humbled by simply listening to, and taking in the life experiences of this gentle, straightforward, jolly, intelligent man. He neither complimented nor criticized me; how often we expect either or both as our culture, our families, "train" us to listen for the external definitions of who we are, how we are. He blessed me by simply "taking me in". He took no measure of me; used no yardstick. I, in my turn, seemed to have been suddenly graced with the same gift of just "taking in". I didn't "think" about Fr. Leo. I didn't ponder him, or observe him as though he were under my psychic microscope; I saw clearly the need to give up that habit as one that, however lovingly intended, obscures my vision of the person in front of me and makes them something I am responsible for, or to, at a level beyond simple human companionship and love.

Carl Jung once said ( and I'm paraphrasing slightly here ) that is it "unlove that makes people unhealthy and only love can make them well".

I experienced an absolute acceptance and love that I've known only a few places in my life. I was given this gift of contemplative awareness of others by immersion, after years of praying and working toward it as a goal; it just came ~ pure gift just handed off. I learned from him, to my great relief, that I still have the capacity to be this for others; it's just gotten a bit rusty from misuse and poisoned by my wrong belief that it was somehow my "job" to fix things for people, to heal them, or make them well, or to make their lives hurt them less~as though anyone can ever do any of that, but I thought it was "on me" to try. There are many reasons why I came to believe that this level of responsibility was mine but in the act of being invited by this gentle guide to simply set those reasons down as one would a heavy rock picked up long ago and no longer needed...well, I dropped the rock! I dropped the rock and experienced an enormous peace and stillness within that I can't describe. I'm just grateful...

May all of you know peace and the simple joy of this time of "high summer". I'll write more about this in a day or two. In the meantime, enjoy the day!

Michelle.