Unplugged in Big Sur: Finding God in Silence and Solitude

Blog by Alan Fadling

In the summer of 2023, I finally got the opportunity to make a retreat at a place I’ve been wanting to visit for years. I drove up to the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California, for an eight-day silent retreat. I’ve done weeklong retreats before on the East Coast, but never here in California.

At the end of August, I made the drive from Orange County up to Big Sur. Several friends who lived in Northern California spoke highly about their experiences at the hermitage. Now I was finally going to make my own visit.

I learned that New Camaldoli is part of the larger Camaldolese order, founded a thousand years ago by St. Romuald in Camaldoli, Italy, about 40 miles east of Florence. They sought to combine the gift of communal monasticism and solitary monasticism. New Camaldoli Hermitage has been in Big Sur since the late 1950s.

Their life is one of prayer, seeking union with God in the way of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Their monastic life involves solitude and community, silence and interaction, prayer and work, study and recreation. I couldn’t wait to share a week in this kind of place!

The location lends itself well to the practice of silent retreat. First, it is a cellular and Wi-Fi desert. No coverage. No internet access. The only way to connect with the outside world is to use one of the two landlines on site. And since the whole community uses those two phones, they are often unavailable even if you want to talk with someone back home. Some may consider this a deterrent, but if you’re seeking a place of solitude, silence, and non-distraction, this is a rare and beautiful benefit.

The hermitage has a bluffside view of the ocean that is inspiring. I have always loved the ocean, and getting to enjoy that vista for a whole week was such a gift.

Over the years, Big Sur has experienced landslides that have closed Highway 1 for months at a stretch. After a landslide in early 2023, the monastery was inaccessible for months from both the north and the south. Actually, I wasn’t certain it would reopen in time for my August retreat. Thankfully, just before my retreat, the road from the north was reopened to local traffic only, and I was able to make my visit.

To reach New Camaldoli, I had to stop at a Caltrans checkpoint and show my reservation confirmation before being cleared to drive a couple miles of highway that had been only partially repaired. I then drove two more miles up the steep, winding driveway that ascends about 1,300 feet to the hermitage. Leaving the monastery wouldn’t be easy, so I was committed to the eight days of retreat I’d planned.

Another feature of New Camaldoli is that much of the housing consists of individual and solitary tiny houses spread out from one another on their 900 acres of property. Many monastic retreats I’ve visited have apartment-like housing for guests. But when I was in my hermitage, there wasn’t another house or person within my view. I was able to see only the ocean in front of me.

Meals at most monastery retreats are communal, even if eaten in silence. But as guests, we ate in solitude after going up to a small kitchen to get our daily food and bring it back to our hermitages. Solitude is taken very seriously at New Camaldoli.

Another gift, like with most monasteries, was the observance of fixed-hour prayer at which guests are welcome. The liturgies are rather simple and drawn from a single-volume prayer book that is used year-round. I found praying the psalms and hearing scripture read in this way to be deeply enriching.

The simplicity of these fixed-hour prayers and the flexibility of meals was a great gift. Being on a retreat for a full week gave me opportunities to actually lose track of time. That doesn’t happen often for me, but the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing suggests that “time is made for people, not people for time.” We are not meant to serve time, but time is there to be of service to us. We are not slaves to our calendars, our schedules, our engagements. The idea that time is intended to serve us sinks in deeply on an extended retreat like this.

As I was checking in on my first day, I was given the gift of seeing a copy of my first book, An Unhurried Life, on the bookstore shelves. I had heard from a friend a long time back that they’d seen it there, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was still in stock.

My retreat in Big Sur was a time and place for prayer. Visiting somewhere that for decades has been a place of prayer is a great gift. There is something about such a place that helps me notice God’s presence more easily. It is what the Celtic Christians called a “thin place.”

One of the advantages of such a retreat time and place is the chance to be attentive to the presence of God and to simply acknowledge what is happening in your own heart and soul. There are so many ways to distract ourselves these days. It is a great gift to be in a place and a community where most of those outward distractions simply aren’t possible.

I’m a highly structured person. I like arranging my time in great detail. So it won’t surprise you that I often try to do the same with my retreats. There’s nothing wrong with structure, unless it gets in the way of what God might want to do.

It took me a couple days of trying to actively micromanage my retreat before I ran out of gas for that and settled into a more receptive posture in the presence of God. Monks speak of “making a retreat,” but I also think it helps to have a posture of “receiving a retreat.”

That’s because as a leader I’m so used to making things happen (or imagining that the main things that are happening are of my making alone). But an extended retreat is a chance to tune into what God may be doing, how God may be speaking, where God may be guiding. This sort of practice has grown my ability to discern God in the middle of my busy work life back at home.

In a chapter of my book A Non-Anxious Life titled “Rhythms of Peace,” I talk about six postures that help us engage well in spiritual retreat: solitude, silence, stillness, sameness, stability, and simplicity.

These six postures are holy “nos” that I practice in order to offer God a more wholehearted “yes” on retreat. They open the way for me to notice God’s company, God’s voice, God’s movement, God’s creativity, God’s presence, and God’s richness.

This awareness deepens for me over the course of a retreat. And I bring that back with me to my life, my relationships, and my work. It’s hard for me to overestimate the value of this retreat practice in my life through the years.

I’ll share more about my experience at New Camaldoli in a couple of future posts.

For Reflection:

• What is your current experience of spiritual retreat? Can you envision the difference between making a retreat happen and receiving the gift of a retreat?
• When, if ever, have you lost track of time like I did on this retreat? How does the idea of time as a servant rather than as a master align with your experience?