Shore

Okay, so here I am at our wonderful retreat house down the shore.  I am much less of a stick in the mud than I was last time I wrote.  However, I am still very wanting of my own shower and bed... but there are definitely some perks that my home convent doesn't have.  The beach, the ocean, delicious home cooked meals ready for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, a beautiful chapel with seaside air, and lots of really wonderful nuns from all over coming together to pray and play.

Our mornings include sleeping in - nun style (which really isn't sleeping in to most people, haha), pick-up breakfast and Mass in our convent.  After Mass the sisters who aren't on retreat start doing their charges or their jobs around the house.  Everyone has a job but the sisters on retreat do something simple like cut vegetables while we try to do the things that would be intrusive to their retreat times.  It is nice to be able to help them have a good retreat.  In the afternoons we go down to the beach, swim in the ocean, relax in the air conditioned community room or on the porch overlooking the ocean, or go down to the main drag and look in the little shore shops or buy candy for our home convents.  Then we have prayers and dinner and more time to hang loose.  It is a lovely schedule - I think it's how God meant it to be :).

One set back has been the heat wave which has also been an occasion of unity through suffering.  Everyone is a little bit miserable from the heat so we are all trying to make one another comfortable.  It's been fun hearing everyone's remedies and seeing the kindness of the sisters who's bedrooms get the ocean breeze leaving their doors open so the rest of us can get a little cool air during the night.

Right now I can hear the ocean out my bedroom window and I am excited to sleep when the temperature is less than 90 in my room with the sound of the ocean waves around me.  Tomorrow begins the next retreat so it will be quiet around here and there will be a lot to do around the house - but there will still be that beautiful background of the sea.