While home in Kentucky, we always find time for lingering at the local abbey.
Truly, the grounds are sacred. You step out of your car and you feel it.
A visit there is an exercise in stillness.
We go to soak in the quiet fullness of
contemplation, prayer and solitude.
On this visit, the abbey bells informed us that a mid-day prayer mass was underway.
So, in silence, we stood in the back of the monastery and let the sound of sung prayers wash over us.
Some sweetness? Claire instantly touched her palms together in prayer and closed her eyes.
Afterward, we spread out a blanket sewn by my grandmother and picnicked in a field full of butterflies and wildflowers.
Call me crazy, but those monks might just be the wise ones.
Because he spent time there, a little Thomas Merton....
"There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans,
and acts as if he had no plans at all."
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present."
"By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me.
The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green….
The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music … under my feet."
"Now let us frankly face the fact that our culture is one which is geared in many ways to help us evade any need to face this inner, silent self. We live in a state of constant semi-attention to the sound of voices, music, traffic, or the generalized noise of what goes on around us all the time.
This keeps us immersed in a flood of racket and words, a diffuse medium in which our consciousness is half diluted: we are not quite ‘thinking,’ not entirely responding, but we are more or less there. We are not fully present and not entirely absent; not fully withdrawn, yet not completely available."
and acts as if he had no plans at all."
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present."
"By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me.
The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green….
The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music … under my feet."
"Now let us frankly face the fact that our culture is one which is geared in many ways to help us evade any need to face this inner, silent self. We live in a state of constant semi-attention to the sound of voices, music, traffic, or the generalized noise of what goes on around us all the time.
This keeps us immersed in a flood of racket and words, a diffuse medium in which our consciousness is half diluted: we are not quite ‘thinking,’ not entirely responding, but we are more or less there. We are not fully present and not entirely absent; not fully withdrawn, yet not completely available."
"Keep still, and let Him do some work."
8 comments:
Nothing like a little solitude and quietness to refresh the soul!!! Beautiful place and beautiful family!!! XO
Love these pictures of a place so inviting. Everyone looks so peaceful.
The next time you are here we will have to hike to the statutes of Jesus and the wise men at the abbey - have I told you about them before? Since Steven grew up on a farm basically bordering the abbey he knows all of those secret spots.
We loved having you guys home! Please send some of these pics.
Love you.
Your new header picture is beautiful.
Catching up on your blog today. Your precious girls always make me smile!
Andrew Peterson has a song that tells of the statue(s) of Jesus at the Abbey in the hills of KY. I am thinking you were in that same place. I enjoyed your post and pictures as I do every time and I had some quiet moments of my own thinking of Andrew's song. Love to all of you. NC Granny
this is so true, rebecca! lovely photos as well! the one in the post above with S blowing the dandelions and the seeds blowing is breathtaking!
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