my guardian dear,

to whom God’s love

commits me here,

ever this night,

be at my side

to light and guard,

to rule and guide.

This was one of the first prayers I learned as a child, and it holds a special place in my heart, probably because I remember my mother sitting at the side of my bed saying it with me each night. But I have to admit that there came a point in my younger adult life when I felt I had outgrown angels. They seemed stuck in my childhood, a remnant of something long gone. And then came the pop culture angel fad. They showed up on everything from keychains to refrigerator magnets and that just made me like the little chubby winged cherubs of coffee mug fame even less.

But then something happened. I don’t know if was age or wisdom or the sudden realization that I could not protect my children on my own, but angels started making their way back into my life. First through my cursory spiritual nod to them every time we got in the car and eventually through my near-incessant pleading with them to watch out for me, my kids and just about anyone special to me, no matter how near or how far. Now it’s not uncommon for me to have a good long heart-to-heart with the guardian angel of a distant friend who just might need a little extra protection here and there. Frankly, I’m sure the angels are longing for the days when I had no use for them. I love knowing my angel is around, and there have been times in my life when I have sensed my angel nearby.

Having a guardian angel doesn’t ensure that nothing bad will happen to us — as know all too well through ongoing personal experience — but it does mean there is a spiritual being of the highest order hovering nearby, sometimes to ease our way, other times to be a comfort, and, eventually, to lead the way for us when we go home to God.

So today, on this Feast of the Guardian Angels, why not take a moment to reintroduce yourself, if you’ve been out of touch, and maybe say that old prayer — or teach it to your children or grandchildren, if you haven’t already.

The icon at the top of the page was written by Minhhang Huynh, a woman I met when I was on retreat at the Abbey of the Genesee in New York two years ago. This post was originally published  on October 2, 2013.

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After months of wondering whether my retreat would be on or off due to COVID-19, I am happy to report that it is ON, and Pyramid Life Center is ready to receive guests and offer us a safe and socially distanced atmosphere. We’ve got nine 20 people signed up for this retreat so far, which means there are very few slots left in order for us to keep this gathering small and in line with health protocols. Of course, small groups make for more intimate and powerful retreats anyway, so… win-win.

Stillpoint: Creating Calm amid the Chaos will be offered Friday, Sept. 11, through Sunday, Sept. 13. It will be a weekend to nourish body, mind, and soul as we enter into the beautiful fall season at Pyramid Life Center. Check-in is at 5 p.m. on Friday; the retreat concludes at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

This retreat will focus around the theme of “meditation in motion” and will include practices to help us discover the divine in the everyday, the miracles in the mundane moments of life. Optional yoga classes will be offered for those who are interested, as well as collage-as-prayer, journaling and more. Participants can also personalize this retreat by creating prayer practices around their own interests — photography, hiking, kayaking — in the abundant free time that will be scheduled into our weekend. This will be a semi-silent retreat: silent breakfasts and silent evenings after our closing sessions. (For those who want deeper silence, there is the option to take all meals in silence.)

The cost is $150, which includes the retreat program, rustic accommodations and all meals, as well as access to kayaks, hiking trails, and plenty of Adirondack chairs for resting and daydreaming. It’s a truly beautiful physical location with a gorgeous lake, mountains, loons, herons and more. To register, click HERE and look for Stillpoint in the dropdown menu.

Pyramid Life Center is operating according to COVID-19 health requirements, with social distancing enforced through facilities. You will be screened as you enter. Don’t forget your mask and your hand sanitizer!

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One of our three children marveled at this strange contraption, wondering how it “worked.” Another saw me with my hands in sudsy water and asked if she might try since it looked so “fun.” I flashed back to my own young childhood, when our home had no dishwasher at all, and I was the nightly dryer of dishes, standing beside my mother begrudgingly with towel in hand.

But, as I soaked the dishes, up to my elbows in warmth and bubbles, looking out the kitchen window at the lush green of our slightly-out-of-control backyard plants, I felt…what was it? Peace. Maybe even joy. Definitely satisfaction. This long-lost simple pleasure, this chore, was, in reality, a welcome break from the chaos of life, giving me reason to pause, to stand in one place with nowhere to go and to meditatively move my hands in circles as I scrubbed the plates and pots.

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, in Peace Is Every Step: “The dishes themselves and the fact that I am here washing them are miracles! If I am incapable of washing dishes joyfully, if I want to finish them quickly so I can go and have dessert, I will be equally incapable of enjoying my dessert.”

In my own book, Everyday Divine, I recommend turning everyday chores into prayers: “It doesn’t matter if you’re a stay-at-home mom, CEO, teacher, plumber, student, or retiree, certain things simply have to be done: washing dishes, making beds, mowing lawns, wiping counters. This is the most logical place to begin adding everyday prayer into your life. Why not make the most of all that time spent doing necessary tasks?”

It took the inconvenience of a broken dishwasher to remind me of my own instructions. As it turns out, St. Teresa of Avila was right: “God moves among the pots and pans.” Especially when warm, soapy water is involved.

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But yesterday something interesting happened. As I drove home from the grocery store, rounding the bend with my house in sight, I had an epiphany of sorts, an Aha! moment out of the blue. Suddenly I felt awash in gratitude. I started ticking off all the things for which I should be grateful. Not the usual things, like vacations or job promotions or celebrations, but mundane things, the stuff that surrounds me most of the time, the things I typically take for granted, or, more likely, complain about. My blessings flashed before my eyes one after another, and even after I got out of the car and dragged the grocery bags into the house, I was still buzzing with the beautiful reality of my privileged life.

Here’s the Cliff Notes version of that gratitude list:

— For the privilege of spending my Saturday morning cleaning toilets and sinks, mirrors and showers in our three bathroom. What a blessing it is to have the energy and time to do the work required, and to have the bathrooms that make life so much easier for a family of five (even if one is away from home most of the time).

— For the privilege of going to the store on a Saturday afternoon to pick up some groceries, most of them not necessities (real maple syrup, anyone?) and some of them complete indulgences (hazelnut coffee). What a blessing it is to not only have the money to buy what I want but to have the car to drive to the store, the ability and agility to get around quickly, and the option of choosing between three large supermarkets in my town, all loaded down with everything from soup to nuts — and patio furniture, just in case you need to pick that up with a gallon of milk.

— For the privilege of running up and down the basement steps throughout the day in order to do load after load of laundry. What a blessing it is to have a powerful, oversized washer and dryer that lets me clean our clothes any time of the day or night, and, while I’m at it, for my family’s clothes that often feels overwhelming when it is overflowing the hampers but is anything but when we need a warm sweater or a comfy pair of leggings or a dress shirt for a business meeting.

— For a trip to the local soft serve ice cream shop with my girls, even if we had to eat it in the car bundled up in coats thanks to the dreary weather. What a blessing it is to be able to drop everything at a moment’s notice and take my family out for a taste of summer on an otherwise wintery day.

I could go on and on. So many blessings disguised as chores or burdens or just another item on my “To Do” list. To people who don’t have the means or the transportation or the energy or the time or the ability, the many things that get in the way of what I imagine could be a happier life are the very things that make my life so very easy to manage and, as a result, happier, if only I’d take the time to notice. The blessings are there. Always. We don’t get to happiness after the laundry and the shopping and the toilets; happiness is right there in the middle of it all. How is it that I always seem to forget that?

#EverydayDivine #MeditationInMotion #Mindfuless #Gratitude #Blessed #MiraclesInTheMundane

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Today’s Gospel reading reminded me of my fabulous five-day retreat and the Life Lines column I wrote about making sure you take time apart to recharge your spiritual life this summer. I’ll be back in the days ahead with some reflections — and photos — from my stay at St. Mary’s on the Lake in gorgeous Lake George, N.Y. So here’s my column, which is running in the current issue of Catholic New York. Let me know in the comment section what you’ll be doing this summer to recharge. (That photo to the left was taken from my favorite prayer/journaling spot on a cliff overlooking Lake George.)

By Mary DeTurris Poust

As I write this column, I’m preparing to go on a five-day retreat. It will be the longest retreat I’ve ever done since, in the past, I’ve been able to grab only a weekend here or there. But recently, as I plan for a change in my work life, I realize that my dream of a longer and more intense spiritual vacation might not be possible if I don’t make the time for it right now. Even as I type those words, I’m thinking about canceling for so many reasons—we could use the money for bills, I could use the time to finally get to some long-neglected house projects, I could do the writing jobs that are piling up, I could take the kids to the pool.

But, if you’re anything like me, you probably know that even if I don’t go on retreat, I most likely won’t get to all the “coulds” on that list. In the end the only thing that will be guaranteed is that I’ll miss out on a magnificent opportunity to give my soul some much-needed rest and attention. We tend to put our soul last on the list, or leave it off completely, when we make our summer bucket lists.

Most of us wait all year to take a week or even just a couple of vacation days to regain our mental and physical balance, reconnect with family, and escape the pressure of work responsibilities and household chores. It’s amazing what a little time apart can do for our outlook and energy. We may return to an in-basket full to overflowing at work and an equally overflowing laundry basket at home, but the benefits of a break are worth the catch-up we all have to do later. The same holds true for our spiritual lives.

My portable sacred space in my room with a view.

It’s critical to take a little time away every once in a while to restore our spiritual balance, reconnect with God, and break out of the routines that might be making our prayer lives less than fruitful and fulfilling. A retreat is the ideal way to refresh our souls and jumpstart our faith life, but if you don’t have the luxury of a weekend away, there are plenty of opportunities to create mini-retreats closer to home, or without leaving home at all.

So your challenge this summer is to look at your life, your schedule, the things you simply can’t ignore as well as the things that aren’t necessary but seem to bog you down anyway, and figure out how you can spend even a little time in more extended spiritual reflection and conversation with God.

Can you take one Saturday, for example, and make sure all your responsibilities are handled for that day so you have absolutely nothing on your “to do” list? If not, can you take half a Saturday or another day during the week? Once you’ve got your day nailed down, think about the things that refresh your soul: A hike through a quiet park or preserve while you say the Rosary? An afternoon sitting by a lake reading a spiritual book or writing in a spiritual journal or just silently listening for the whisper of the Spirit? A table in a busy café where you can disappear in the crowd and look inward even as you watch the world go by?

Feeding our soul doesn’t have to happen only in a structured retreat setting. It’s something we can do for ourselves whenever we start to feel fragmented, whenever the stresses of life seem to be getting the upper hand. That usually means we’ve let our connection to God slip a bit and it’s time for some quiet soul searching, which I have found with equal ease whether I’m maneuvering around Manhattan by myself for a day or paddling across a quiet lake in the Adirondack Mountains. It’s not about the exterior view but the interior attitude. Once you set your heart on prayer, retreat is possible anywhere.

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Listen in at the link below for a conversation — and some tips — about prayer based on my book Everyday Divine, from my April 8 appearance on the Morning Air Show on Relevant Radio. I’m the first one up, so you don’t need to fast forward to find me. Just hit play.

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Mindfulness sometimes gets a bad rap in Catholic circles. Not in my Catholic circles but in others swirling around out there, sometimes loudly. Some Catholics want to say mindfulness is not compatible with our faith because of its obvious connections to Buddhism. And to them I say: Look at the long and beautiful history of Catholic monasticism, and there you will find the very definition of mindfulness. Every hour, every day, every season, every action set to the rhythm of prayer. It doesn’t get more mindful than that.

As I have said in books and blog posts and interviews, when I think of mindfulness from the Catholic perspective, I think, “God is in the details.” When we look closely at the mundane moments of daily life and do things with attention and intention, we discover the divine right where we are. God is in the line at the grocery store. God is in the dishes in the sink. God is in the laundry piled to overflowing. God is in the crocus pushing up through the cold, hard ground.

Of course, none of that makes mindfulness easy. In our fast-paced world, multitasking is seen as a badge of honor, so going against the grain and doing only one thing at a time takes effort. We need reminders and prompts to get us into the habit of mindfulness. For me those prompts come in the form of sounds and visuals. I have an hourly chime that rings on my office computer. Every time it chimes, I say the one-line Jesus Prayer until the bells stops reverberating: “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” So short but so powerful. I have a prayer card from the Abbey of the Genesee hanging over my coffee maker as a morning reminder to pray. I have crosses, saint statues, Rosary beads, lotus flowers, seashells, Mary statues and icons and paintings in almost every room, and yes, even a Buddha statue. All of these things serve as exterior reminders of the peace I need to cultivate within. I have a specific sacred space in my office, one small spot with a cushion and a prayer bench for those times I want to sit or kneel in dedicated prayer or silence. And although all of this sounds wonderful, it doesn’t mean I always make time for prayer or always remember to be mindful, but even when I’m not so successful all of those visual signs and symbols keep pulling me back to my center and reminding me to focus on God, and that is the beginning of mindfulness for me.

Here are more mindfulness resources from this blog. Click on the titles to go to these posts:

A bowl of oatmeal as spiritual practice

Mindfulness minus the monastery

Changing your meals from mindless to mindful

Mindfulness bell: the sound of silence

Everyday Divine (various posts related to mindfulness and everyday spirituality)

And don’t forget to head over to the Catholic Courier for the story on mindfulness by Amy Kotlarz. Click HERE for that.

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I’m a wannabe hiker. And a wannabe camper and kayaker, for that matter. Although I’ve done a little of all of those things, I’m no expert.

A writing colleague who knew I was clamoring for a hike messaged me one night and asked if I wanted to join her for a beginner trip to Huckleberry Point in the Catskills. With a little appointment juggling and a lot of assistance from my husband, Dennis, I said yes, packed a lunch, and dusted off my hiking boots.

My friend Jill had offered to drive so she could drop her son off at a gathering at a nearby lake. She bypassed the fast-moving Thruway and opted instead for winding back roads. We could arrive 10 minutes faster, or we could be surrounded by beauty, she explained, adding, “I’ll take beauty.” As we hugged the mountains and drove through quaint towns, I wondered how it was possible I’d lived in the region for almost 14 years and had never taken this route.

Finally we arrived at Colgate Lake, only to find that her son’s friends were running an hour late. We couldn’t leave him there alone, so our only option was to stay put. I imagined how I might have handled the situation if it were my son whose friends had thrown off the schedule. At the very least I would have been annoyed. But Jill calmly moved the car, settled in and made her son—and me—feel grateful rather than upset.

We had an hour to sit lakeside with mountains all around us, not a bad Plan B, but I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it quite so much if not for Jill’s peaceful surrender to what was rather than what should be.

The bright blue sky above, the dragonflies skimming the water, the other families boating and swimming—how could a hike get better than this? I felt a shift somewhere deep inside as I began to realize what a blessing this hike day was turning out to be, even if we never reached Huckleberry Point. But we did.

When we finally headed out along the hiking trail, I felt soothed by the meditative rhythm. The trail required a certain amount of concentration to step over and around rocks. The climb required occasional stretches of silence to conserve energy and not struggle to talk. The deliberate and slow movement reminded me of the walks I’d taken on silent retreat, only this time I didn’t have to force myself to slow down; nature did that for me.

About an hour into our hike, we met two women walking in the other direction. We asked if they had reached Huckleberry Point. No, they said, but that was OK by them because it wasn’t about the view. Excuse me? It’s not about the view? Of course it’s about the view. For the rest of our hike, as I wondered if we, too, might have to turn back before we reached the summit, I mulled over this prospect. How would I feel if I hiked for three hours round trip and never got the payoff?

About an hour later, we reached Huckleberry Point, with its stunning view of distant mountain peaks and rivers and lakes. We ate our lunch on a rock ledge and watched a vulture circling far below us and clouds passing by at eye level. At that moment I started to plan my next hike, not because I necessarily need to climb up to a spectacular view but because I need to climb down into that space in my soul that still clings too tight to all the things I think I should do rather than the things I could do, if only I gave myself permission.

The next time you go for a drive, take the long route. Choose form over function, beauty over speed, and deep satisfaction over fleeting reward. Hope for the view but take joy in the journey.

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