Statues in the woods

When Jesus took the disciples to Gethsemane and then took the three further along with him, he became very troubled and "filled with sorrow to the point of death." He told the disciples to keep watch while he went ahead to pray. What did they do? They fell asleep. Yeah, they'd had a long week. All that walking to Jerusalem, getting ready for their Passover feast, the feast filling their bellies. They were wore out and needed a nap. But after just being told that the man you've been following for three years is about to die so that prophecy can be fulfilled because he's the Savior of all mankind, you'd think they could stay awake a little longer.

Just like these three, we get tired too. We get tired of life, and find ourselves sleepwalking through our days. We find ourselves wandering through the darkness of this world searching for Jesus, when all this time he's been right there in the Garden, in agony praying for mercy. For himself and for this world.

For my Spiritual Disciplines class we're required to spend 4 hours in silence and solitude. I decided to head down to the Abbey of Gethsemane where Thomas Merton spent most of his life as a monk. They have a couple thousand acres of land with woods and trails all over them. It's only an hour away and I had heard a lot about it from professors, so I wanted to experience it's peacefulness for myself.

I got there early in the morning and decided to climb a rather large hill at the entrance that had chairs at the top. From here I could see for a couple miles in all directions. I watched the sun light up the landscape and shimmer in the dew as it rose across the plains. It was one of the mosts serene pictures I've ever experienced. After about an hour I came down and entered their visitors center to get directions to the trails. I ended up meeting the head monk who has been there since the forties!

I must confess, I did have some ulterior motives for going there. Andrew Peterson has a song titled "The Silence of God." One of the verses says:

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll,
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold.
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone,
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone.
And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot,
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought.

I once heard him talk about this statue and the impact it had on his life. So I wanted to experience it for myself. But as I started approaching the hill where "the statues" (as they refer to them) are, I started to wonder if I had built this up too much and was going to be let down. But as I entered the wooded knoll, I came upon a large metal statue of the three disciples stretched out sleeping. And as I turned the corner, there was a large statue of Jesus on his knees, hands over his face, looking up to God in agony. I really can't describe it here, but I had to sit down on a nearby stone to fully take it all in. To actually see what it must have looked like, with the three thirty feet away carelessly sleeping, while Jesus, in his humanity, is crying out to God to take this away if at all possible.

It was a humbling experience and I probably could have sat there all day, but the business of life would not allow it. So I reluctantly left and followed another path back to the monastery.