I HOPE YOU CAN FIND whatever it is you are missing.”

The cell had not gotten any larger in my absence. Five days in this room was going to be the death of me. I lay down on the bed and fell asleep again. The dinner bell woke me just before 5:00 p.m. I walked to the front desk where Virginia waved to me and pointed to the door where the brothers ate their common meals, called the refectory. There were plates and cups and utensils along the wall and a large pot of soup on a butcher block. A variety of uncooked vegetables rounded out this fine meal. I will lose five pounds at this place, I thought. I noticed that all of the monks were thin except one. He must be sneaking Snickers when no one is looking, I thought with a twinge of malice. Then I realized that, if I were stuck here, I would probably do the same.

I sat at the silent table and slowly began eating my bean soup and raw carrots. To my surprise, it actually tasted pretty good, kind of like when you are camping and even Spam is something to salivate over. One of the brothers was reading something from the old Scottish writer George MacDonald as the rest of us quietly slurped and listened. One of the brothers motioned for me to pass the salt, and when I handed it to him, he smiled and nodded. Most of what was read passed over me unattended, but the reader caught my attention with “Begin to love as God loves, and thy grief will assuage; but for comfort wait His time. What He will do for thee, He only knows. It may be thou wilt never know what He will do, but only what He has done. It was too good for thee to know save by receiving it. The moment thou art capable of it, thine it will be.”

Grief, I thought, does not assuage. Mine has not diminished or healed. I wondered silently if anyone in the room had suffered through what I had. I glanced at Brother Taylor, sipping his soup. I wondered, Does he know about disappointment with God? Or has his life been sheltered and cloistered, reading his dusty books and praying five times a day, unaware of the pain outside these walls?

The silence of the meal was peaceful. It was nice not to have to make conversation, to be clever or seem interested. We just ate. It was strange to do something as intimate as sharing a meal with people but yet not speak to one another. Somehow I felt a sense of belonging even though I had not spoken a word or been spoken to.

I retired to my room and sat there in silence for three hours. Several times I got up and paced the floor like a caged animal. I positioned my chair in front of the window and stared at the bricks. A bell rang, which summoned us to the chapel to participate in what they called “compline,” the final service of the day. I didn’t feel like praising God or even praying, but I wanted out of my cell. The monks chanted a number of psalms, mixed with some prayers and passages from the New Testament selected for each day of the year. The chapel was more ornate than I, as a Methodist, was used to. After a few minutes I got comfortable with the pageantry. The gold and silver and stained glass, along with the smell of incense, seemed to usher me out of ordinary time and space. The sound of the monks chanting began to move me and made the back of my throat hurt from the ache of unshed tears.

We retired in silence after the service. I went back to my cell. I desperately wanted to speak to someone I knew and loved. I grabbed my cell phone out of my suitcase and went outside.

“Honey, it’s me.”

“You made it all right?”

“No problem.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s really pretty here. Kind of medieval in some ways. My room is the size of a closet, the food is meager, and I have a lovely view of a brick wall. But the people seem nice.”

“Do you think you can handle five days of silence?”

“I don’t know. Jonah survived three days in the belly of a whale, so I suppose I can survive five days in a Massachusetts monastery with a bunch of monks. I know how crazy this all seems. It isn’t like me. I mean me, at a monastery, hoping, against better judgment, that somehow, somehow—” but I stopped. “Anyway, honey, I really appreciate the fact that you have been so supportive about this whole retreat business.”

I heard her sigh, so I tried to lighten the mood. “Oh, and catch this, they assigned me a spiritual director, but I am not too sure about him. He’s a jogger.”

“What?”

“He’s a jogger. I am not kidding. Underneath his cowl he was wearing a pair of jogging pants and running shoes. I was hoping for a chubby old man with a long, white beard; instead I got the ‘jogging monk.’ Imagine that. Me, with a runaway monk. But he seems all right.”

“I just hope . . .”

“What?”

“I just hope you can find whatever it is you are missing. It has been hard lately, Tim. Especially watching you suffer. I know you are hurting inside. I hope this helps.”

“It will, I think. You are an angel for letting me come here. I don’t know if I will find anything while I am here, but there is a good chance I’ll lose a few pounds, which won’t hurt.”

“I like you as you are. I just want you to find your smile again. And come home soon. Nathan and I miss you.”

“I miss you guys too. I love you.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

As I returned to my cell, I saw an older monk with a long white beard coming toward me. He waved and bowed, and I did the same. It figures. There went the white-bearded monk I’d never know. As he walked by me, I saw a glow on his face. When I returned to my room, it seemed even smaller. I sat down at the desk and opened my Bible. Above the desk was a small note, written on a three-by-five-inch card, I hadn’t noticed before. It read, “You Are Welcome Here. Enjoy the Solitude. Feel Free to Take Off Your Mask.” I decided it was time to quit for the day and try to sleep. I tossed and turned throughout the night. I heard a bell beckoning the monks to matins, the first prayer of the morning. I was too tired to get up and go pray with them, so I stayed in bed. “Pray for me,” I whispered, “pray for me.” With that I finally fell asleep. When I awoke it was noon, and the lunch bell called us to the refectory where we dined on tuna fish sandwiches and celery sticks.

An hour later I knocked on Brother Taylor’s door.

“Good afternoon, Tim.”

“Good afternoon, Brother.”

We sat in silence once again, and once again I was agitated by it.

“Well, I did nothing, just as you said.”

“And?”

“Nothing happened. I am as miserable as I was when I came here. There’s nothing to do here. There’s no TV in my room, for heaven’s sake. I am about to lose it.”

“Good.”

“Good? How is that good?”

“You’re still in control. You’re still running the show. You have to let go. It’s like falling asleep, Tim. You can’t make yourself fall asleep, no matter how hard you try. At some point you just let go.”

We sat in silence again.

“Speaking of sleep, tell me about your dreams, Tim.”

“Are you some kind of dream therapist?” I asked. He shook his head no. “Well, lately they have been nightmares.”

“Could you tell me about them? Do you have any that you can remember?”

“Well, for the past few months I have had this same dream. Man, I have never told this to anyone. Oh well, here goes. In this dream I am wandering through a field at night during a thunderstorm. The only shelter I can find is an old abandoned house. I go inside the house and discover that it is a morgue. I open up a door, and there is a creepy old man standing over a workbench with his back to me. He is laughing in a sinister way while he chisels on a stone. I look over his shoulder to see what he is chiseling, but I can’t quite see what he is doing because it is too dark. Then lightning flashes, and I suddenly see that he is chiseling names on tombstones. There are four tombstones in front of him, and they bear the names of the three people I have lost, Madison, Wayne, and my mother, Rose. He is carving another name on the fourth one, but I wake up before I see whose it is.”

Brother Taylor stared out the window, seemingly lost in thought.

“Pretty creepy, huh?”

“It is certainly not pleasant.”

“Sounds like I’m a candidate for some major therapy, don’t you think?”

Brother Taylor smiled.

“So, what do you think it means?”

“I think it means you are a person in need of better dreams.”

I smiled back at him.

“Tim, do you believe in heaven?”

“Of course. I am Christian.”

“I mean really believe it. Do you have a strong sense of certainty that the people you lost are doing well?”

“I do. I mean, intellectually I do. But I don’t have any proof. I would like to believe there is a heaven. But sometimes I think it might be just wishful thinking. My dad used to say that when people die, they die. Game over. Just like an ant or an amoeba or a mountain goat. We die and we cease to exist.”

“Do you think he’s right?”

“Well, not really. I can’t believe that when we die it just ends. I like the idea of heaven. But in a sense I am no better off than my father. Neither of us has any proof.”

Another long silence passed between us. I thought about my nightmares and prayed silently that they would somehow pass. The clouds must have parted because sunlight suddenly penetrated the room. I could see the dust on top of the books. I hung my head, with my chin...