Quiet Days in a Religious Community

by Christina Baxter

Why do I spend my Quiet Days at a Religious community house and not on top of a mountain or some other kind of place? That is the question, Dr Christina Baxter, the Principal of St John's College, Nottingham, and a lay canon theologian of Coventry Cathedral, asked herself. Amidst her busy schedule, which includes not only the work of the College but also the responsibility of chairing the House of Laity of the General Synod, she regularly spends time with a Religious community. During such days, she has an opportunity for withdrawal and quiet. In this article, she explores her reasons for these Quiet Times and their significance in her life.

How did it all begin?
As a young schoolteacher, I went on retreat to a convent with a group of people and found it helpful. Yet when I tried to spend a few days there alone, I left early. I had not understood what the time was for, nor was I ready for the silence and solitude.
A few years later, I joined the staff of St John's College. We started to spend our faculty Quiet Days with the Community of the Holy Cross at Rempstone, and keep one day each term when the whole College would keep a time of quiet. These Quiet Days were a new experience for me, and I was helped to make the most of them by the good teaching of my colleagues and by students. Yet, the experience was also partly familiar. As an Evangelical, I was used to keeping a 'quiet time' every day - the novelty was in extending it, and adding eating in silence and refraining from greeting people as one walked around. At the beginning, I did have to overcome a resentment within me about being made to be silent, and also counter my reluctance to use the whole time for God.
It was being elected to General Synod which prompted my occasional visits to the Convent to become a more regular part of my life. The experience of Synod increased my need to intercede by several incremental points. So I began to spend a whole day before each Synod praying for the agenda and my part in it. I was really struggling with the way in which other Anglicans on Synod were Christians, and so I was in urgent need of grace so as not to fall into the sins of hating, despising, ignoring or criticising them. Eventually, this led to the pattern of my taking one day a month, which I have now done for several years.

What are the characteristics of my times of quiet?
I never return from the Convent without knowing that I have been with God. There are a range of ways by which this makes itself known. If I have a major decision to take, the quietness facilitates discernment, especially as I am in a place where I am surrounded by the loving prayers of the Sisters. When I have spent time in silent prayer, laying the possibilities and arguments before God, I discover a sense of what God wants me to do. I cannot tell you why I know, but I do. When I am invited to do something, I often say that I shall pray about it before I decide. I then take such requests with me on Quiet Days.
Second, I sometimes go with sermons or retreats to prepare. Again, as I spend time with God and focus on Scripture, I find God speaking to me that 'I may speak in living echoes of his tone'. It is not that I am unaware of him on other occasions, but on Quiet Days it is like putting clothes into a drying machine - the natural processes are speeded up. So too, with listening to God: in silence I am in 'God's drier' and the process is speeded up!
Often I go with a great hunger for God or with a sense of tiredness or emptiness. I collapse into a rocking chair and God enfolds me in his love. He gently steals away my tiredness and fills me with the emotional and spiritual energy for the next steps on my journey.

Why the Convent and not my home?
There are many reasons why it is good to get away from home, but they are not to do with seeking silence as such, for, because I live alone, my home can also be a quiet place. I can be (and am) quiet with God at home. The problem there, however, is that I am surrounded by things which need to be done. Even though I confine my College work to my study at St John's, work of a different sort calls me at home, such as domestic chores and the lure of the garden. Plus, there is a temptation at home to rearrange my priorities, whereas a regular engagement in my diary to be away from home means I do not meddle with the time for quiet: it is fixed. Although, the pressures of work sometimes make it hard to keep the engagement with God, I now recognise that I do not get more work done by skipping the Quiet Day. In fact, I do achieve more after this day than I do at other times, because I return with the gift of mental and emotional energy.
Second, it is great to be unobtainable. At the Convent, no one can knock at my door or telephone me, and so I know that the time is absolutely set aside.
Third, I am able to join my prayers to those of the community. They have a pattern of daily prayer in which I can share, and this includes the Eucharist. The Quiet Day is a day in which I can pray without any responsibility for the pattern of psalms, intercession and praise. As I get older, the gift of being able to rest on the praying life of others becomes more and more significant to me. The Convent also ministers to me. In College, I am never 'off duty'. At Church, I am never beyond the reach of those in need. The Convent is one place where my own needs can emerge without fail. It is like a watering hole, where I do not have to hold back whilst others go before me to drink.
Fourth, the Convent is a place where my Sisters in Christ have undertaken to pray for me. I do many things in the course of a year. Having others intercede for me faithfully has been over the years, and still is, an enormous support: the Sisters are among this group. I am able to share with one of them, in confidence, matters which I am not at liberty to share elsewhere. There are times when it has been critical that I could have an intercessor to carry prayer requests for the ministry and responsibilities with which I am involved.
Religious give themselves to a life of prayer, which is a gift to the Church and to the world, and they allow us to share this. They can carry us to the Throne of Grace when we can not take ourselves there because we are too distracted by other matters. By their silent witness, they teach us more about silent prayer, sacrificial love, discipline, and about the God who calls us to daily acts of obedience.
At the Convent, I have learned ecumenical lessons too. I have been accepted, even though I do not share all the convictions the Sisters hold, or express my faith as they do. That has made it possible for me to accept them. And it has also been the wellspring for my understanding of many of my Anglican brothers and sisters whose life I do not very often encounter.

Can I recommend it to others?
I can and do suggest - often - that people take this kind of opportunity in a community near to wherever they find themselves. Perhaps the one word which sums it up is hospitality. In the generous hospitality of a community I find myself encountering God's gracious and generous hospitality, which is healing, life-giving and renewing.