• I was itching to visit Mindanao so Digos would be a good start
• it was high time to join a live-in retreat as the last one I attended was in high school.
On a cloudy Tuesday, we landed in Davao and motored to Digos. The Monastery was everything I expected it to be--- very quiet.
We were going to be a group of 16 women. And being the advance party of 3, we had the retreat house and grounds to ourselves from late afternoon until bedtime (at 8PM!). We were each given our own room-- very basic with a washbasin. Toilets and showers were outside-- just like a dormitory. The rest of the party arrived shortly after we had gone to bed but I was out like a light. Surprisingly for someone who usually takes at least two nights in a strange bed to fall asleep easily.
At 4:30AM, there was a sudden buzz of activity outside my door. The monks had morning prayers at 5AM and followed by mass at 6AM. I peeked out my door and saw some of these ladies rushing back and forth in the corridors. I quickly got dressed and quietly left the dormitory and headed for the church.
My two friends were not up so since there was no time for introductions, I kept to myself as I stole glances at the women who would be my retreat companions for the next three full days.
By breakfast time the necessary introductions were made. It will take another day to get the names and the faces in sync. Meanwhile, to help me remember, I jotted down things that struck me for each of their names I wrote down in my notebook. So-and-so was the one with the tight curls; this other one was the spunky leader of the group, and so on and so forth. By the end of the morning, we were friends. Maybe not close, but the smiles were given out more freely.
The retreat in itself was far from what I had expected. For the next three days, our retreat master, Fr Pat, would meet with us promptly at 9AM. He would speak to us for about an hour. After which, he would advise us to go and find a cozy nook and reflect on what he had said. Guide questions were also given out to help in the reflection. He would meet with us at 3PM for the next session and after a short time, send us off for solitary reflections.
At first, in all the silence, I probably thought about what Fr Pat said for about 30 minutes and then do other things to occupy the rest of the time. I got a chance to steal some time to talk to the staff and the sisters that ran the house. I took solitary walks around the retreat grounds--
checking out the cows
and the chickens
and took pictures of the gardens.
I also took morning naps, afternoon naps, prayed the rosary with my two other friends, and most of the time sang myself silly in one of the garden huts. That was how I was reflecting.
So one afternoon, after singing a medley of Carpenters songs, I happened to look up to see what I thought at first were two golden brown butterflies twirling up in the air. I never took my eyes off them and watch as these "butterflies" finally came to the hard ground. On closer examination, the twirling butterflies turned out to be seed pods of the mahogany tree. I picked them up and then it hit me. The sessions of Fr Pat could be likening to the seeds in the parable of the sowing of the seeds. These "seeds" will not grow without the benefit of a fertile soil or a reflective spirit.
I had come to the retreat hoping to be spoon-fed the answers I was seeking the way it was done during my high school days. Fortunately for me, there was that tiny bit of quiet time when a message got through. Thankful, I stopped singing to listen to the quiet.
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Delicious meals and snacks at the retreat house were available at the dining house. Meals were made out of the fresh produce from the market. And since Davao is the fruit bowl of the Philippines, there were a variety of fruits served during our stay: tangy pomelos, sugary sweet chicos, mangoes and pineapples, slices of red watermelon, caimito (sugar apple), the (in)famous durian, creamy papayas and golden bananas. Definitely my stomach was always quiet with contentment.
Many of the vegetable stews were familiar to me as Davao share similar Visayan fare—like utan (veggie stew). And utan will not be complete without the tanglad or lemon grass fashioned into a distinctive knot. Follow the steps below and add the knotted tanglad to your meat dishes or veggie soups for a new taste dimension.
Step 1
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Step 5
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