Out of the Silent Planet

So I am fresh back from a four day retreat at a Franciscan community. It wasn't in silence though much of my day was solitary and silent. I found myself much more able to engage with the retreat than I have done in the past (as evidenced in Perspectives!!). I think I had a successful retreat because I realised the ridiculously simple truth that the point of a silent retreat was not to BE SILENT. The focus is no SILENT but its ever so spooky anagram LISTEN. It's not about merely being SILENT but about being away from it all and able to LISTEN to God. While there I talked with some people about the other retreats they have done such as the thirty day Ignatian retreat or the 8 or 15 day silent retreats. Woah! Yet I had a feeling that I now could do one of those without feeling I would fail at doing it. However I suppose part of me questions whether that is a rather self indulgent amount of time to spend in retreat as it is so refreshing. Yet retreat is not self-indulgent but God indulgent. It is about focussing not on the material stuff (and indeed people) of our regular life but of giving time to God so that we can return to HIS work (not ours) refreshed.

i had one further thought about it all on my return. It was a very non FRESH expression of spirituality and yet FRESH for me. Mark B made some interesting comments about the title of the new Anglican initiative FRESH EXPRESSIONS. He doesn't like the title because FRESH could refer to a church using something which is old but which is new for them. I think this can be FRESH. It's all about context, surely? So much of the FRESH emerging worship in fact draws on very ancient things and sometimes traditional things like incense. How is this any less FRESH than "to use hundred hymns for today instead of hymns Ancient and modern"?

Ok contraversial but... well you love it really!