Your life is the chapel, and the thousand small details in the painting are the events of your life.

July 21

I’m not in a hurry to write this, as you can tell. It needs to be told accurately, in its own time. The events I’m describing at the retreat were ultimately not as significant as what happened afterward—to the others and to me. It’s a kind of remarkable tapestry, terrifying to behold, with its woven images of demons and the vast dark unknown, that has to be viewed patiently. Imagine yourself standing fifty feet beneath a painting at the top of a chapel you might see in Rome.  Your life is the chapel, and the thousand small details in the painting are the events of your life. Past, present, and  future.

You cannot comprehend its whole without examining each small part. I am, ultimately, a small part of it all, as is everyone who was there, with the possible exception of Philip. He was more than just a storyteller. He was a bridge from what came before … to me. I am what you’ll find on the other side of it all, should you survive the journey. An ending that begins, and a beginning that will eventually end, but not yet.

Dinner was waiting for us later as promised. But first I wanted to shower and change my clothes. The summer was hot, and the drive from New Jersey had taken longer than expected. The traffic gods were either determined to trouble me, or to try and stop what was coming. They could be cursed in either case, for their success and their failure.

The cabin was small but solidly built, with dark log walls sealed by tar, and small windows cut into each wall. There were five beds, two on one side and three on the other, each with a plain quilt and a rough wooden frame that looked hand-built. The three men who’d gotten there before me had already claimed their beds. I saw suitcases on two beds, one with a duffle bag beside it as if the guest had planned to stay longer. A third suitcase was under another bed, leaving me two to choose from.

We are, in the end, drops of water from on ocean that awaits our return. Until then, we seek.

July 18

I had not expected to spend a sleepless night. Ghost stories told around a fire, which is what this at first appeared to be, are the stuff of childhoods and the easily frightened. We were adults—three women and four men, one of whom had done his best to scare us all with a preposterous tale.

I didn’t know any of them. The retreat had been arranged for seekers, such as we were, not for a group who knew each other. And while I place myself firmly in the agnostic category, I will admit now that I belong more in the believer column, though it’s not a belief that comforts. It’s a belief in the malevolence of things we don’t understand and are better off not examining. The whole experience has confirmed my conclusion that the human species is not the pinnacle of evolution, but it’s most tragic mistake.