The Abbey

Reprint from Life Unplugged Column, Tucson Green Magazine. December

by Susan L. Feathers

Last month I discovered a jewel of a retreat center—Santa Rita Abbey in Sonoita.

Nestled in the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains, the Abbey overlooks miles of rolling grasslands dotted with oaks and junipers.

Hawks and golden eagles ride the thermals above the modest brick structures where Sister Vicki and her fellow Cistercian nuns keep a ‘round the clock prayer vigil for a busy world.

During the day the sisters make sacramental wafers for the Catholic churches of America, tend bees to sell honey, and make religious art. There is a beautiful tranquility that permeates the Abbey on the hill and the retreat house below it.

Silence, reflection, prayer… these are the gifts of Santa Rita Abbey. The retreat house offers a quiet place to recover one’s center of balance. There are rooms simply furnished with a single bed, a small desk, modern bathroom and shower, and an outdoor chair for the tiny porch overlooking the hills.

A small stone water fall welcomes retreatants to solitude and contemplation. At dusk wildlife drinks at its edges.

Retreatants are welcomed to attend the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours up at the Abbey, but one can simply pray or meditate in the retreat house chapel—a lovely room with a large floor-to-ceiling window that frames the hills and sky.

There is a shared kitchen stocked with food, or you can bring your own. A common dining space and library with plenty of comfortable places to sit and read is shared with other people seeking time to unplug from the demands of life in the city.

I read from St. Teresa’s Autobiography of a Soul the first night. It was Monday evening and I had the place to myself. After months of little sleep and intense work, I had led anything but a sustainable life for too long. This fact led me to the abbey. Obviously I needed to reevaluate the whole notion of sustainability. As a sign I was in the right place, I discovered the Abbey is solar powered!

~ Unplugging means plugging into something the makes more sense. ~

Sitting on the little porch with binoculars and bird book, my attention turned to the community of feathered friends that inhabit the hills—hawks, flycatchers, quail, vireos, jays and ravens. Late in the day deer bound behind the oaks and coyotes yipped on the crest of the burnished hills.
In the absolute quiet, I became aware of a crunching sound when I discovered the grassland was inhabited by millions of grasshoppers.

I spotted an amazing hopper with long stick legs three times the length of its body. It had both legs buttressed against blades of grass while two other legs held it steady to dine at a banquet table as vast as the hills.

On my stomach I gazed into a yellow eye on its green trapezoid head. Suddenly it looked right at me and for a long few minutes I was eye to eye with one of God’s little creatures.

From that perspective, in the grass forests of Earth, I realized anew that man is just a big lug on the set with a million other players, each of us with legitimate claim to Earth’s abundance.

~ At the Abbey I found humility and wonder. ~

If you decide to go, call Sister Victoria at 520-455-5595. The Santa Rita Abbey is located fifty minutes south of Tucson airport. The Abbey suggests a $35 donation per night to stay at the retreat house.