Hermit Days

My community has a wonderful practice of allowing each sister one day a month to be a hermit.   This day is meant to be spent in solitude, silence and prayer and we are not required to attend the communal liturgies.  Needless to say, everyone looks forward to a hermit day.

I was a hermit yesterday.   It’s nice to not have to set an alarm and just wake up when your body is ready to wake up.   Of course, over the years, your body gets used to waking up at the same time more or less anyway so sometimes it is hard to sleep in! 

My favorite thing to do on a hermit day is spend much time out-of-doors.  I so love seeing the fingerprints of God in his creation and quieting my mind by walking.  So, I put my hiking boots on and headed east along 320 St which borders our property.   This makes my city friend laugh, 320 St is a gravel road!   The surrounding countryside is always green in spring but with the heavy amount of rain we’ve had over the past weeks, we are as green as Ireland.  (Not that I have ever been, but I’ve heard rumors)

Meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds and killdeer were keeping me company as they called out from fence posts or fields.    With a pair of binoculars in one hand and my Jesus Prayer rope in the other hand, I enjoyed the spring breeze, the sun dancing in and out of clouds, the assault of green on my eyes and quiet prayer.   All of 2 cars passed me on my five mile jaunt.   Now that is being out in the country.

Perhaps the BEST thing about a hermit day is not heading into the ‘office.’  My monastic mind can become fragmented with too much time spent on a computer.  There are studies that show the attention span is decreasing of those who spend a lot of time on the Internet.  We are tending to scan for information instead of really doing any deep reading.  We want the needed information quickly and if we don’t see it right away on a web page we quickly move onto the next link.  Some people claim they have a hard time just sitting down and reading a book now. 

That is a scary thought.

Our minds need a resting point to be healthy and to hear God in the silence.    We all need to be mindful of how our minds get fragmented.

Hmmm…now that I’ve written this post, I think it’s time to take a hermit minute and be still.