I spent the weekend on a silent retreat — exiled, I called it. (This was not my choice.) When I boarded the van with a couple of bags, I didn’t even know where it was headed. That’s how busy life has been. (When I had told my teenage son I’d be spending the weekend in silence, he smirked and said, “Tell me how that goes.”)

Well, here’s how it went: I saw textures and colors. I tasted the sweetness of grapes. I smelled the rain and heard the birds. I took time to think and pray and read and walk and listen.

How long had it been … since I’d been exiled from peace?

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