At this time of year, people are kind enough to ask me ‘how did your retreat go?’ and I normally answer ‘very well thank you’.

But what makes a good retreat and what do I gain from the habit of retreat?

It’s hard to put into words, but it might be summed up in three ways.

1. Getting away from the parish. Being a vicar can be somewhat all consuming. Putting some physical distance between myself and my work goes a long way to proving a mental and spiritual circuit break. I’ve experimented with going various distances. Driving one hour away hardly gets you anywhere, but I’ve also tried four hours plus, and that’s sometimes meant I arrive a bit frazzled. About the time I scraped my Volvo against another car in a motorway service station car park on the way to a retreat in Devon, due to being tired and unfocussed, the less said the better.

Launde Abbey, Leicestershire: 3.5 hours from Reading

2. Finding silence. This used to be a problem for me because whilst more experienced people said they loved going on silent retreat it took me a while to settle into it. I think my culture had taught me it would be weird. What I learnt very quickly was that it’s never really silent in the countryside. In fact, if you go to a rural retreat house it can be noisier than the city, what with early morning birdsong, sheep, tractors and occasional low flying jets. And now I think it’s weird to be constantly over stimulated, and for the most part not even realise. And then wonder where God is…

There’s an interesting relationship between silence and solitude. I did go to a retreat place in South Wales a couple of times, where everyone was in their own little bungalow and there was only half an hour of collective worship (aka silence) every day. By the end of day two I was so bored with my own company (despite some excellent sheep) that I had to go shopping in the local town, just to see other humans being normal. So for me, that was too much solitude.

Launde Abbey sheep

On the other hand, if you go on an organised retreat in a group of others, you’ll need to make conversation with the other course members – lovely for some people but not something I’m looking for. So I go on an individual silent retreat in a retreat place where there are quite a few other people also living under the same roof. I find it very convivial, especially the signs on the supper tables that say ‘Basildon Quilters Group’ or ‘Bishop’s Leadership Team’. I of course avoid those tables and instead sit apart with a book whilst quietly eavesdropping and trying to guess which one’s the bishop.

3. Prayer. Obvs.

The Launde Abbey Jesus (statue. Endlessly sketch-able, especially in the light).

Basically, you need silence to pray. There were times in my life when I didn’t have any, and I’m sure most parents have the same experience. There are plenty of reasons to avoid silence too, even when you can find it. It forces us to face ourselves and what’s going on inside. That’s why I go on retreat – to carve out large amounts of space to attend to what’s going on inside, where God is at work. Being outdoors hugely helps this, and walking in ‘silence’ (with sheep, birds, tractors never far away) and being alone. It’s a very expansive experience.

Farm near Launde.

I’ve come to realise that to get more God in your life you ‘only have to subtract’ (Erling Kagge, Silence in the Age of Noise, 2018).

It’s all about subtraction. Take away noise and being busy and God floods in. Outer quiet is no guarantee of inner quiet, however, so that’s the next thing to deal with. But once you draw near to God in stillness, silence and solitude you soon realise that most of what goes on in your head is just chatter and subsides sooner or later.

The Risen Jesus, Launde gardens.

Yellow cottage on Wood Lane, Launde.

So – get away; silence, prayer.

When I’m asked ‘how did your retreat go’ and I say ‘very well thank you’, those are the three things I’m grateful for. I retreat to advance – knowing that coming back to ministry I’m often more centred and ready to see what’s important and what’s less so. I can listen better and I notice more (not always comfortable). I take my retreat with me into the rest of the year. Over the next weeks, I’ll paint what I saw. Going on retreat shrinks the world in order to expand it. At the risk of sounding obvious, it’s a relief that God is everywhere and not just in the world of Church.

Sketching in Stamford (nearby Lincolnshire is also beautiful).

Finally, the word ‘habit’ traces back to the Latin ‘habere’, to have, hold or possess. Back further, it has deeper roots in the proto Indo-European ‘ghabh’ which means ‘to give or receive’. In forming a habit of retreat, I am grateful to be in the constant having, giving and receiving of the goodness of God, both in the Church and in the created order, which goodness is one and the same.

I recommend the habit.