I am not a teacher who has ever counted down the last days of school.

I enjoy my job and the students and families I work with every day during the school year.

I’ll miss every one of them!!!

I’ll miss the excitement and joy that only a preschooler can offer.

But I think what I hate the most is packing up the classroom so that it can be cleaned over the summer. It looks so bare and lifeless!

Changes and goodbyes are hard and often sad. But since I became a Benedictine Sister, I have something to look forward to at the end of the school year. Something to ease my sadness. It’s our silent community retreat that begins tonight.

Retreat time refreshes my soul. It reminds me we need endings to make new beginnings. It gives me time and space to slow down and enjoy God and God’s creation.

It also feeds my mind! We attend two daily conferences presented by our retreat director (this year, it’s Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB from Subiaco Monastery, Subiaco, Ark.) all week. I also begin reading a stack of books I’ve been meaning to get to. The librarian at our nearby small branch library always teases me that she knows it’s retreat time when I come in for my stack.

Retreat is gift. It helps me focus on God and settles me for a summer of monastic life with my Sisters. Autumn will arrive soon enough. 🙂