What better place to return to my blog than an airport on a lazy, school holiday afternoon.
As kids sip from water bottles and teenagers narrowly avoid others with iPhones, cafe workers sit quietly on a break and cleaners change bin liners from a seemingly endless supply of bins, I sit, and watch, and wait.
Mine is a different trip, and I wonder how many people in the airport at this moment would be flying to the same sort of place.
Many would be flying to escape, this is for sure, and many, if I mentioned my trip, would say the same of me.
However my silent retreat at the Jambaroo Abbey, south west of Wooloongong, is no escape. I am running forwards, running to my God.
As I run to retreat, I’m also reminded of God’s indwelling which makes all around me possible, but also distracts me from all that is possible in my own spiritual journey.
It’s a running into silence that I am drawn to.
Before any retreat, emotions are mixed. Running to your Creator is at once liberating and joyful, but also slightly terrifying. To be found and refound by God is challenging. To be known so intimately, so lovingly, is, of itself, strange, complex, unreal.
So I sit, surrounded by this world a little longer, surrounded by countless phone calls and trashy magazines. I await a time when my own self will be more fully swept up in a life far greater than what I can possibly ask for or
imagine.
Vegan Priest, Christopher Golding 