Are you feeling exhausted or spiritually depleted?
Or perhaps you'd like to take a break from our fast paced, rentier-based economy that frames the nihilistic existence we call modern life? There are many places that might offer you some brief respite for a good chunk of change, but I'd recommend circumventing them for something deeper and more ancient. To borrow from the Bard, get thee to a nunnery - or a monastery - for the tranquility you seek.
I spent the past weekend at the Abbey in Mission. While I was there less than 48 full hours, by the time I left I had a chant in my heart and a sense of deep peace in my mind. All this after waking at what we might call ungodly hours to stumble sleepily in silence to choir stalls and join in on a tradition that precedes the Norman Conquest of England. Throughout the rest of the day, prayer, hearty plain food, reflection and hard work were the order of life.
This hardly sounds like a holiday. And, properly speaking, it wasn't - it was a retreat. A retreat into something that has long been lost in our world - reverence and never ending purpose. You can scratch the surface of these ideals in a few areas in our modern world - full-time military service, examination week in university, and harvest or birthing season are all examples of places where committing one's body, mind and soul is still encouraged, even necessary.
But at this point, even these holistic moments or occupations are often devoid of the answer that fueled the preservation and eventual re-deployment of Western Civilization over a thousand years ago: namely that God loves us and wants us to make happy signs of gratitude back to him. This used to be the order of life for everyone in all that they did, but a few short centuries ago - now it's the stuff of myth and movies - it became a lost ideal that we will never regain.
This is of course flummery: it hasn't been extinguished completely. In fact, we'd do well to bring it back out into the open to combat the dark night brought on by the Enlightenment. There is a stark beauty to the simplicity of monastic, cloistered life; seeing the profound happiness of those who keep away from cellphones like they cause cancer, wear bed sheets like royal robes and eat beans like its lobster bisque makes one wonder if we're the fools.
Whatever your faith, I'd encourage you to visit one of these places. There are at least two in B.C. that I know of, and dozens more around the world if perhaps you'd like to go on tour or even do a pilgrimage while trying out medieval life. And to be perfectly candid, as I left the Abbey to return home, I wondered to myself if I might not stay forever if I was given the choice. I guess that's the problem with permanence in our modern world - it makes us too happy.
