Winter Retreat: A Time of Leisure?
By Sister Cecelia We as contemplative monastics find that this retreat time contains schedules wherein many of our activities are not as time centered or time limited as usual. While many responsibilities need our attention—dogs need their usual care, and decisions can’t wait for retreat time to be over—we have some leisure to spend doing things we ordinarily don’t find time to accomplish. Extra reading, thinking, meditating, cleaning areas that are not on the housecleaning list, going through “stacks” in my office and other work areas to put in order as well as pitching and cleaning out. As librarian, when I categorize new books and enter them into the computer, I want to read a good many more before putting them on the shelves! However, I limited myself to only three books during this retreat. One is Radical Optimism by Beatrice Bruteau. Like the author, I once thought the word schola had to do with schools and scholarship. It turns out that the Latin schola comes from the