St. Francis Springs Prayer Center is one of my favorite places. My grandparents owned a farm about 15 minutes from St. Francis Springs, so being there fills me with nostalgia and goodness. My grandparents didn’t have a lot of things at their house. They owned a rotary, corded phone until they passed a few years ago and only got cable TV when I was in high school. So, to say there was solitude on their farm, is a legitimate claim. My childhood was built on solitude that came from just being in that place.  

It’s always hard to come back from a retreat. In places like St. Francis Springs, you have this dedicated quietness that is hard to find in the “real world.” If you’ve ever seen me and my husband packing up our children after church, you know I am not able to spend most of my days in deep solitude- and that’s okay. Someone is usually tired or hungry, too hot or too cold, or needs to know how many more days until Christmas. I know that God sees me in this unique stage of life, and I believe He meets me each day, among the peanut butter and jelly residue and muddy paws that enter my home daily.  

One of the most transformative books I have read so far in seminary is called An Altar in the World by Barabara Brown Taylor. As much as I’d love to spend my days sitting on a sunny bench at St. Francis Springs and delighting in nature all day, my calling is here, with you all. This is why I love this book so much. It gives us tools in our daily lives to contemplate, not necessarily in complete silence, but in daily and seemingly mundane ways. With spiritual practices such as the practice of encountering others or the spiritual practice of paying attention, I am reminded that God is not this distant entity in the sky- He is here. He is in me. I cannot be without Him.  He is in all things. All the time. Forever.   

One of my favorite spiritual practices is the practice of paying attention. In this book, Barbara Brown Taylor encourages readers to take a few moments in the day to notice God’s creation. And I mean really notice. This practice allows us to see organic and inorganic things as part of God’s beautiful creation. She gives an example of paper. Maybe, among our daily tasks, we look at paper and give thanks for paper. “Thank you, paper, for just being you. Thank you for being who you were created to be. You are really good at being paper. I see you, paper.” This may seem silly at first. But I assure you, the more you practice this in your daily life, the more God’s presence seems to be in all things- even paper.