The word retreat is an interesting one--in battle, it means "fall back to a safer position until we can regather ourselves for another attack." This is a specific action. But it also has come to mean the place itself. I am staying overnight at a retreat center near my home. The purpose of the retreat is to carve out some much needed space for curriculum planning at my university. I came here with a small team of teachers, but there were close to one hundred of us here for this short time. It is a time out of time, a retreat. Life goes on outside of this space in its usual way--work continues, errands, busyness. But here, time stops its usual progression and sort of empties out. It's not that time slows down--it's that it just sort of pauses. I can retreat from a war, but only long enough to gather up my strength for the next battle. It's interesting to me that in this way, retreat takes on the context that life is a battle and that we all need a break from it every now and then. I don't know if I'm entirely comfortable with the idea of life as a battle. It sounds so contentious. It sounds so difficult and contrary. Shouldn't life be "a bowl of cherries" or "a dream" (as in "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream; merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.") But I know better of course. Life is difficult and contrary and tiring and frustrating. But it is also wonderful and funny and envigorating and surprising and lovely. And sometimes it's war. It is in retreat that the wonderfulness of life returns to us.
3 comments:
I share in the same dilemma, I have an issue with the phrase "life is a game" or "the game of life". I am sorry to be a "negative nancy" but to me, life is not a game nor a battle, it is a life. I would like to be able to provide a better, more in depth definition of what I mean by that, but for lack of understanding, I cannot. I just know that to retreat or engage in a retreat has been something that I have avoided with a dread akin to the boogey monster under your bed when still a kid. I have been preconditioned to believe that life is a struggle or game in which I take my "roll of the dice". I don't like that. I applaud you for your approach and qestioning of what your life is in contrast to the definition that has been cast upon you. Forget the teachers, forget work, just concentrate on the stream...merrily merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but YOUR dream. Thank you for choosing to experience your life in the natural and academic way I aim to pursue and enjoy mine. It is comforting to find a like mind, with which I can share space.
I always thought that defining Life was hard. There are so many different saying we use to define it but none of them ever sum up life as a whole. I think parts of life are like a battle and we have to over come them but at the same time "Life is but a dream".
I think retreat has the same "much needed" definition in any situation one encounters. Retreating in War is basically asking for a break, same as going to a retreat (place) to get away from the work week. Life should be a "bowl of cherries/ or a dream" but instead, it is a road of uncertainness, ups and downs, highs and lows, the good, the bad, the happy, the said, the pretty flower days and the ugly sky days. I've waited for Spring to actually arrive in Washington State because I need a retreat from the gloom. Life is too short to feel stuck in any compromising position, so RETREAT AWAY, as the Day (and the life you leave) will still be around to welcome you when you get back!!! Bad part about Retreating.... Lol
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