The Associate Retreat , a Letter from an Associate

This was our first meeting since the fire.  How would it go?  New digs.  New director.  A bit anxious about it.  But from the first moment we saw each other we knew we were home.  Our corporate love overcame any unease we might have had.  And then our first meeting with Brother Tom Schultz:  The theme for the weekend, the mystery within our relationship with God, with self, with others.  He turned us into prayer poets that first night.  Some of us had never head of haiku and by noon Saturday he had forged spiritual Pulitizer prize winners of us alll.  The brothers, bless them.  Just to be with them:  Will and his stories, Laurence and his jokes, Roy sweetly singing the Psalms.  And Nick, deep in recovery from recent surgery, made the descent to share Luis's abundant table with us.  None of us wants to wait another year before we meet.  Br. Tom promises we are in the mix of all that must be done to recover and rebuild the Mount Calvary experience, however that may take form.

                                                                Judith Chumley-Cohen, Associate