We went on retreat this weekend! Thanks to a generous couple, we were allowed to stay at a beautiful lodge for free. We were way up in Clark Fork, Idaho...a tiny, tiny town right next to the Bitterroot Mountains which create the Montana border. It was stunningly beautiful and the weather was too.
A special feature of the lodge was an assortment of stuffed animals (not the cute kind) in the kitchen. Most striking was this mountain lion. There were also deer- one which I slammed my head into as I stood up from rearranging chairs- DOH! (a deer! a female deer!)Anyway, it was a little hard to eat with these things staring at you...for a variety of reasons!
Another key feature of the weekend was reading quotes from the Desert Fathers; I think this was the first I had ever read from them. We mainly read from Pope Benedict's writings (so beautiful and profound!!) but at night we would go through sayings of the Desert Fathers as if they were fortune cookies. Here is an example:
"Abba Anthony said 'I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, 'What can get through such snares?' Then I heard a voice saying to me, 'Humility.' "
aahhh...good stuff.
SO, we left feeling very nourished, comforted, renewed, more aware of the beauty of Idaho, and very sure that we are not into taxidermy.
