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Writings
About Evelyn Underhill
Coming Home To Pleshey: A Memoir
Kathleen Henderson Staudt
Evelyn Underhill recalls how her first
experience of a conducted retreat at Pleshey retreat house in 1922
transformed her attitude toward church and vocation, and began the
process of clarifying her own calling. She writes to Baron von Hugel
of the satisfactions of her daily regime of communion and four services
a day, and reflects that "the whole house seemed soaked in love
and prayer." With that description in my memory, I made a two-day
retreat to Pleshey last April.
And so I found myself, late on a Saturday afternoon, at the railway
station in the distinctly unromantic London suburb of Chelmsford,
being met by a tall, soft-spoken man in a worn tweed jacket. He introduced
himself as Bruce Hollamsby, the assistant warden, and welcomed me
heartily, saying, "You can not imagine how delighted we are to
have you here."
As we drove into the Essex countryside, we talked about other American
visitors who had come to Pleshey, and shared experiences as lay ministers
in our parish churches. Both of us serve as lay chalicists, and both
of us do some pastoral care among the sick of our parishes---he at
the small church next door to the retreat house---I in suburban Washington,
D.C. We found an immediate meeting of minds about the deep satisfactions
that we find in our ministries.
Dizzied as I was by the romance of a pilgrimage to Evelyn Underhill's
special place, I also found myself oddly confused by the familiarity
of what I found at Pleshey. Arriving just in time for dinner, I joined
the members of a parish retreat from the village of Exling. We sat
at a table, eating family-style, and I recognized these lay people,
open to such innovations as the ordination of women and liturgical
reform, yet also proud of the centuries-old traditions of their parish.
The setting was not so different from suppers I have had on retreat
at the Clagget Center in Maryland, or at parish suppers at other times.
And when I thanked them for including me in their weekend, one of
my companions said firmly, "It's your retreat, too, now."
I learned that the retreat house shies away from becoming or being
perceived as a pilgrimage spot, a shrine to Evelyn Underhill, though
they do draw some spiritual tourists from America and Australia. I
was welcome, not so much as a pilgrim, but as a friend and guest---to
be a part of this house of prayer, and to join with those who were
there. This was, after all, exactly what Evelyn's whole ministry stood
for. Though her crucifix is there, and there is a plaque in her memory
in the chapel, perhaps the best testimony to the everyday, consecrated
lay ministry that she most cared about is the functional new building
on the already crowded grounds of the retreat center. Called the Evelyn
Underhill Center, it is a place for day retreats and quiet days.
As I joined in the readings of the daily office, I entered into the
quiet, dignified spiritual life that goes on in the Anglican tradition
at its best---deeply centered, without the expectation of drama or
epiphany. The Eucharist in the chapel on Sunday morning was lovely,
light-flooded, and we used a modernized version of the liturgy---much
like our American Rite II.
I said to myself, reflecting and writing there, it feels like "home."
It could be in Maryland, or Virginia, or northwest DC---a spring garden,
shouting songbirds, a family of cyclists passing by on the footpath
by the stream, a lawnmower going in the churchyard next door---the
same sounds heard back home on a Sunday afternoon, an ocean and thousands
of miles away. Well, yes---the moat and hedge that passes by this
place are over 600 years old, the village is much quieter than suburbia.
These are differences. But the familiar outweighs the exotic. There
is a sense that I have been here before, and will return again.
Perhaps, after all, this is a glimpse of eternity. Greeted with a
welcome beyond our imagining, we find ourselves in a garden that we
have visited before. Looking at a statue that stands in the garden,
or gazing at the tower of a village church or a great cathedral---or
in the quiet of a sunlit chapel---we know there are arms stretched
over us in love. In the noisy quiet of chattering birds, or the luminous
silence of a consecrated place, we seem to hear a voice that we have
heard before, our of the depths of love: "Behold, all things
are being made new. Enter and join in this great work. You cannot
imagine how delighted we are to have you here!"
First delivered at the 1995 Day of Reflection and printed in the November
1995 Evelyn Underhill Newsletter. |