It isn’t until I enter the silence that I fully realize the extroverted life I have chosen for myself.  

Dave and I spent today driving through mountains, eating lunch in Aspen and closing out the day St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass for the first time.  When a monastery is within 100 miles, I’m a moth to flame as if I’ve found my people.   No greeters at the door telling me to have a nice day.  No signs pointing us anywhere except away from the cloistered silence of the monastic monks.  No shops with kitschy mugs and politically correct bumper stickers.  No explanation of anything except the intimations of Nature who has a language of her own.

I walk into the bookstore and icons of the Christ line the walls and my favorite authors’ books are set out on tables.  Merton. Bourgeault. Wilber.  Zuercher.  Ilia Delio. Chodron.  Aurobindo.  Enneagram weaves with Integral weaves with Buddhism weaves with contemplative Christianity.   I am away from the religion and politics that dilutes wisdom to a shadow of itself and feel no need to explain the path I’ve chosen.

I walk outside and Dave sits on a bench under the aspens.  As I sit behind him, I know that some day soon I’ll come back.  Maybe not to Snowmass, but to a longer period of silence in the natural world that waits for me.