Transparent Christian Magazine

I remember the days of old… Psalms 143:5 NKJV

I WAS TOLD IT WAS USED AS AN ARMY HOSPITAL DURING THE CIVIL WAR. It is now a retreat center operated by the Episcopal Church. Nested high in the Shenandoah Mountains of northern Virginia as if suspended in time, the structure is large and generous, with high ceilings and old wood, columns, and broad friendly porches, the remnants of an old world, an old life. The only thing new is perhaps the curiosity it arouses, that, and the paint. Creaking floors and staircases, whispering corridors, the hum of forgotten life. The smell of antiquity, of obsolescence, of oldness, distant, faint, and yet inescapable, a smell you can’t quite place, one that plays with the memory.

There was no phone, no TV, no Internet, and no noise (other than nature itself). There was no air conditioning in the rooms; although cool nights and pleasant mountain days were stronger than any complaint, and called back something genuine to the senses. There were no locks on the doors. No Starbucks®. Cell phones wouldn’t work. I brought habit and custom with me, and I wrestled a bit when I had to lay them down. But it was Okay. You don’t really resume your life in such a place. You remember it.

[Orkney Springs Retreat Center, Shenandoah County, Virginia]