The Latest Cathedral News Author: Noel Morris
Why Would I Sign Up for THAT?
February 13, 2017
A reflection on the Cathedral Parish Retreat
by Noel Morris
Prayer is an awkward subject for me. I tend to think of it as a Sunday morning thing or something you do when you’ve run out of options (like when the airplane turns onto the runway). So when Dean Dominic Barrington announced the coming parish retreat on the theme, “The Practice of Christian Prayer,”why would I sign up for that?
Well. A weekend with St. James Cathedral people, I thought, would be a good time. And I definitely needed that.
To be honest, I’d been anxious about our world: fake news, alternative facts, tensions within my family (red vs. blue)—it seemed our whole country had turned onto the runway. And, if I’m to be honest, my life had, too: my career, albeit fulfilling, was fraught with pressure and uncertainty. Packing for the parish retreat, I gathered warm pajamas, knitting and a bottle of vino. I did not consider bringing that other kind of baggage.
When The Rev. Dr. Ann Hallisey introduced the weekend program, “The Practice of Christian Prayer,” she was surprisingly mellow. While she seemed prepared for everything, she required nothing—if you wanted, you could nap the whole weekend. She invited us to observe some of the ancient monastic practices, such as keeping silence between the services of compline (before bed) and morning prayer. We kept silence during a couple meals, and during our sessions together, did something that isn’t necessarily associated with prayer: we closed our eyes and attempted the simple, yet formidable challenge of stilling the mind.
During the worship services, which started and ended each day, we enjoyed live music provided by people within the group. Consider this: when was the last time you heard live music after a day free of electronic devices?
All along, we shared. We talked about what happened as we meditated, and learned a lot about one another’s life experiences. And what a varied collection of life experiences it was: the group included a teacher, an arts administrator, a doctor, a newly repatriated expat, a violinist, priests, an FBI agent, and the mother of an astronaut.
There was a spontaneous, late-night gathering in which a number of us reaffirmed Psalm 104: “wine maketh glad the heart of man.” We bonded over Ann Hallisey’s guided meditation and had some huge laughs.
A word about ghosts: our parish retreat happened at the DeKoven Center. Stately and replete with relics, this vine-covered, pre-Civil War greystone had creaky floors, clangy radiators, and stairs that bowed from decades of wear. No two rooms, no two corridors were alike, which inflamed our Hollywood-style musings. Naturally, sometime after midnight and a lot of wine, several of us crept to the unoccupied fourth floor to explore. We opened the closets and wardrobes, and peered into the nooks of that twisted floor plan. Alas, we encountered no apparitions, but did give furlough to our giddy inner teenagers.
After lunch on Sunday, Robert Black and I rushed back to Chicago to engage with the body so central to our lives at St. James Cathedral: the Cathedral choir. After singing a wonderful choral Evensong and giving another nod to Psalm 104, my church weekend ended.
Getting back to work on Monday, I resumed the unproductive ritual of poring over headlines. My old companion Anxiety wrapped itself around my upper body. Instead of ignoring it and soldiering on, however, I took out my iPhone and set the timer for 20 minutes. Closing my eyes, I focused on the techniques we practiced over the weekend. Stillness. It was imperfect—I can’t stop thinking altogether—but the tension subsided, and stayed away for the rest of the day.