Yesterday, we saw a play at Yale Rep which greatly puzzled me. In general, I did not like the play, an adaptation of Richard Wright's classic novel about black culture in the 1940's, Native Son. I thought it smacked too much of sensational melodrama, as though the playwright was trying to hold the audience's attention by giving us constant doses of rough, unloving sex and disgusting, purposeless violence.  Being an adaptation of a novel that explores racism in the 1940's in America, I assumed the play would contain deep revelations and insights about the nature of racism and what it does to black people. What I saw, however, was a play about a black man who cruelly murders two women on stage, shows no genuine remorse, and continually tries to save his own neck instead of trying to understand why his life went this way and how he can still rise above the racism he's experienced.  I saw almost no significant depth in the production, and the graphic on-stage violence and sex completely turned me off. 

Today we conducted our first at-home silent retreat, just Delycia and me, and we both feel it was a grand success. We agreed to stay silent as much as possible, to not use computers or phones or television, and to try to focus throughout the day on spiritual growth, whether through meditation or reading or writing. For my reading, I used five of Richard Rohr's daily meditations, all on the topic of oneness, or union, and I benefited greatly from reading them off and on throughout the day. I would read for a few minutes, and then sit silently and think about what I had read, sometimes for 30 or more minutes. Around 9:00 am, we took a silent walk together, down through Old Mystic and around on River Road along the Mystic River, and we both found it quite inspiring. We were silent as we walked, just trying to stay centered on whatever spiritual truths we were focusing on. Later, we had a silent lunch together, and then I read aloud from Dickens' A Christmas Carol (which we have been reading for several days now) for about 15 minutes, a part of the story that contained many spiritual insights that could be beneficial during a silent retreat. At 4:00, we bundled up and took our fold-up chairs down to the river to see the sunset, and it was a wonderful way to start the final hours of our retreat. It was cold, but the quietly shifting colors of the sky and the soft movements of the swans on the water made for a short but inspiring meditation. We finished the day with a silent supper, then some quiet conversation about the retreat's blessings for us. We both agreed it was a memorable experience, one which we hope to repeat on a regular basis. 

The Mystic River on our morning walk

A silent and  cold retreater

Sunset sky over the river