Come the relevant weekend, I was duly well ready for a “weekend off”, as predicted. I didn’t know much about the community where we were going, apart from the fact that it was some sort of monastic thingumajig, which I (and most of those on the retreat) had no experience of, apart from a bit of mediaeval history. The concepts of “monks” I’ve grown up with tend towards stereotypes — you know, old blokes sitting around in ancient buildings, hiding from the world and endlessly going over some meaningless thing called “tradition”. That’s a bit exaggerated, but you know what I mean. Mirfield changed my perspective on that heavily. Through our experience of sharing with the community in some of their regular daily worship, as well as our conversation with them at Friday supper and Sunday lunch (before and after the “silent” bit of the retreat) we were introduced to a group of people from amazingly varied and active backgrounds who, for whatever reason, felt that God regarded their presence in a monastic community as legitimate service and worship of Him, not a shying away from the wider world. The worship and teaching there, although firmly placeable in a “high church” tradition, placed a very strong emphasis indeed on discovering Jesus Christ’s teaching in the Bible, as well as a large amount of singing of and meditation upon the Psalms. The brothers do not just restrict their activities to inside the walls of their house. The existence of a branch of their community in Southern Africa, as well as their late 19th century roots, incline them towards a prominent and active social conscience, both in terms of alleviating general poverty and spreading the Christian message to those who have not yet heard of Jesus. Part of this includes a college attached to their house at Mirfield for the training of priests.

However, this was not just an exercise in broadening our awareness of methods of Christian worship, as useful as that is. This was a chance for us to come to God in a contemplative fashion, to learn more about Him and to equip ourselves better for living for Him in the wider world. To this end, our retreat “director” for the weekend was a Methodist minister named Gary (I never did learn his surname), who led five sessions. These were based on the writings of the twentieth century U.S. Roman Catholic monk, mystic, contemplative and controversialist Thomas Merton, who taught both the value of silent meditation, thought and prayer in our understanding of God, and also that this cannot be disentangled from an understanding of and involvement in the wider world, and an active, even strident, representation of the teachings of Jesus. To this end Merton was a prolific and outspoken writer in the 1960s against the Vietnam War and for the growing Civil Rights movement (for example), whilst remaining within a monastery, in almost complete silence under a strict Rule that allowed little or no relaxation for its members.

Outside of the sessions, which were basically silent, we had, as promised, much space for reading and thought. I myself alternated between attempts to read “improving” Christian literature from the Community’s large collection of books for visitors (oh, and the Bible too!) and getting to grips with the next week’s seminar reading list. Nevertheless, I found the time useful, and the “religious” reading more interesting than my seminar work anyway, particularly those bits of it that directed me towards the Bible, being the sort of person who cannot “just” pick up the Bible, even with the best will in the world. Here, it was also nice to refer back to elements of the worship with the community, especially the Psalms, which is for me one of the best bits of the Bible — but then, I’m just strange. Keeping to silence was challenging and more than slightly unsettling at times, but enabled a lot of this reading and thought to go on — not that we were especially good as a group at being totally unsilent, anyway! A consequence of the whole “silence thing” that I found both a bit weird and strangely comforting was eating in relative silence as part of a large group. The feeling of communal presence and sharing that one gets at meal times anyway was still there, but strangely different without the constant chatter one usually gets, at least when I’m around. In a way that’s hard to explain, it made me more aware of everybody present, despite the inability to communicate more than "pass the butter, please".

Reading back what I’ve written, I’m worried that this sounds like the weekend at Mirfield was the best thing in my life ever and that I’m now a reformed, totally dedicated Christian. Sadly not true. The structure and style of the retreat took a lot of getting used to — it was at least a day before I felt OK with it — and I have the sort of concentration span and tendency to fidget that makes silent thought and prayer a real struggle. I don’t know even if the weekend “taught” me any large lesson in particular, other than the fact that I need to give more time to trying to understand God apart from my usual hurried and confused attempts. But It was “useful” to me in a way I can’t define easily, and I would go again like a shot, and would encourage anybody still around next year to do the same. Try it, you might like it …

Matt Campbell