Retreat to Durward's Glen

Durward's Glen, a charming retreat center and natural haven in Baraboo, Wisconsin, has been one of my favorite family hiking spots to visit whenever we take our annual weekend camping trip to Devil's Lake, one of Wisconsin's finest State Parks.  I'm not so big on camping these days like I had been when the kids were small.  Too often we find our camping weekends to be freezing cold, or we get rained out like we did on our most recent trip, finding our tents and sleeping bags to be no defense against the thunderous downpours that bear down while we sleep causing us to awaken to a wet and muddy mess-inside our tents!  But I do enjoy hiking, and for the opportunity to make a mini-family hiking retreat to Durward's Glen each year, I will gladly put up with rain and cold and any other weather related mishap that comes with abandoning ourselves to God's great outdoors.

Someday I will go on an actual retreat at this lovely, hidden piece of heaven in the middle of Wisconsin, but until then, I'm so glad that I took lots of pictures on our recent visit so that I can reflect upon them, pray with them and forever remember the grace of quiet time with God and my family at Durward's Glen.  Although I didn't take pictures of the Stations of the Cross, it is noteworthy to mention that each station is built in ground that has been brought from the Holy Land and Medjugorje. For more information about Durward's Glen including its fascinating history and information on the retreats offered there, visit the website here.  For more of my pictures of Durward's Glen, visit my facebook page, and for my 2011 post about Durward's Glen and my family camping adventure from that year, visit this link.

the artist's cottage

Mary's Shrine

Cornerstone Hermitage

the spring

a close-up of the spring

a stairway to heaven?...

...well, practically, because it leads to the Holy Family!

the cemetery where many priests and religious are buried

St. Mary's Chapel of the Pines

some of my companions and I reflected in the window as if we were inside

an adorable statue of St. Francis of Assisi guards the door

"Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." ~Matthew 8:20 

I pressed my phone up against that glass window to take this interior photo

These folded pieces of fabric tied with string to the boughs of a pine tree fascinated me!
Could they represent answered prayers?

an adorable planting

This oak tree is over 400 years old.

Don't you just want to wander down this path and lose yourself in prayer?

I love Durward's Glen!

Camping Complaints

(photo-the bluffs at Devil's Lake State Park, Wisconsin)

The beauty belies the chill in the air, as frigid bodies curl close for warmth, and tents set up in the dark on top of tree roots make for sleepless nights.

The joys of camping-marshmallows roasting on the fire, hiking in the bluffs, fresh, clean air
in our lungs, family time spent close together without electronic interruptions-are overshadowed
by the cold of early autumn.

A friend once asked me if I wouldn't like to live outdoors in the beauty of nature. As my family and I hiked in the wooded bluffs around the lake I pondered that question and I almost thought I would answer yes to that lovely thought as a pristine day spent in nature with the glory of God filling my heart easily pushes away any negative thinking.

But sleepless nights in a flimsy tent during 40 degree weather take all reminders of the glories of nature away and I am quick to complain about how cold and tired I am and I wonder out loud why my family considers camping to be a vacation.

Later, I regret my whining words and I wish that I had offered all that suffering up for a higher cause. I thought of a book I recently read, "Merry in God" about the life of Fr. William Doyle, SJ, an Irish priest who served as a military chaplain during World War I. His letters and journals spoke of nights trying to catch a few minutes of sleep in a wet, muddy trench with giant rats all around and the sounds of bombs whistling through the air. During his years of service, he rarely complained about the weather, his sleeping conditions, or his lack of food, but instead focused on his need to minister to his fellow soldiers and bring God to their weary hearts. He offered Mass in the most difficult circumstances. He listened to endless confessions and offered general absolution before many major battles. But during all of the stress and difficulty of the horrors of war, he was forever smiling and loving to everyone, offering all of his hardship to God for the good of his comrades and the sake of their souls. And it was that spiritual service joyfully offered in time of war that finally took his life during a horrific battle.

Shame fills my heart when I realize how far away I am from that ideal attitude that makes saints out of men. These words of prayer from that very holy man are worth remembering when I am tempted to complain of little sufferings and inconveniences:

"O Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Who would not love You, who would not give their heart's blood for You, if only once they realized the depth and the breadth and the realness of Your burning love? Why not then make every human heart a burning furnace of love for You, so that sin would become an impossibility, sacrifice a pleasure and a joy, virtue the longing of every soul, so that we should live for love, dream of love, breathe Your love, and at last die of a broken heart of love, pierced through and through with the shaft of love, the sweetest gift of God to man."

"I must eagerly welcome every little pain, suffering, small sickness, trouble, cross of any kind, as coming straight to me from the Sacred Heart. Am I not your loving victim, my Jesus?"

Prayer for Priests by Fr Doyle

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and their duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice, and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, "This is my Body, this is my Blood," grant them to apply to themselves: "I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself, but by consecration another."

O my God, I burn with desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions, let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today, a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, ladened with gifts, to share these abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.

Fr. William Doyle, SJ

To learn more about Fr. William Doyle, visit Remembering Fr. William Doyle, SJ

God's Microscope

My family and I took a weekend vacation to a nearby campground on the shores of Lake Michigan with some of my nieces and nephews and their children. After putting up with an entire Friday night and Saturday morning of rain, the clouds cleared and we began making more memories than simply those of huddling together under a tarp while waiting for better weather. Now that we are home, unpacked and cleaned up, I reflect upon the wonders of nature and the joys of family time together that highlighted our time away.

I thank God for...

Queen Anne's Lace and Black-eyed Susan's that grow wildly and profusely along the roadways of the campground,

toads that hop across the road in the dark night and aren't even aware that they have been named "Fruit Punch" by my daughter,

sunny afternoons spent frolicking at the beach and for the fact that Lake Michigan was warm enough to swim in,

sighting the Big Dipper, making s'mores and pudgy-pies and the sight of sticky faced children reveling in late night treats,

breathing fresh and fragrant air and tent-sleeping on an air mattress instead of the rocky ground,

waking up in a dome tent without the cover, but only a screen between me and the outdoors and enjoying the sight of trees and blue sky above me while the sound of birds punctuates the silence with their early morning prayer,

visiting a quaint country church for Sunday Mass and realizing that there is no place as wonderful as your own home parish,

and most of all, for my wonderful children who bring joy to their little cousins who look up to their older relatives.

Here's a little reflection I wrote about a camping trip we took last summer...

God's Microscope

Sitting around the campfire, watching the bright orange embers give way to blue, green, yellow and red flames can hypnotize me. The warmth that the fire produces draws me into a trance. Listening to the quiet voices around me share scary campfire stories brings me gratitude for my family members who have the gift of storytelling. The wide-eyed children huddle in closer to the fire in an effort to allay their fears.

As I hold my overtired and fearful daughter, Mary, on my lap, I lean back in my chair and look to the sky. What I see there is even more beautiful than the hypnotic fire.

The trees surrounding our campsite create a circle silhouette in the dark night sky. In the middle of the circle of tree branches, the dark sky glimmers with millions of stars shining so brightly that it is almost heartbreaking. I feel as if I am sitting under a microscope and God is peering down from the sky, through the trees, to watch my family. The stars are the specks of pride in his eyes for all of his creation with whom he is so madly in love. God is so generous to share these natural gifts with his lowly, human creatures. How blessed we are to receive his gifts, and how happy he is to see our gratitude.