[ryanmercer]

I've done this here in the U.S. before. I'm not Catholic but Saint Meinrad Archabbey is 2-3 hours south of me here in Indiana. I was getting really burnt out from lots of OT and had been talking to someone I know that used to be a Catholic monk, he did some searching and reached out to St. Meinrad and arranged for me to stay there for a few days.

It was great. The monks basically left me alone, I had a small private room with no television or radio, there were common areas where people would quietly talk, I just sat around enjoying calm and quiet. Eventually one of the monks got brave enough to come over and ask me what was up haha which was also great because I had a very interesting conversation with him about life in general and then he suggested I talk to the Friar that was the director of the guest part of the archabbey which I did and had an interesting few hour conversation about ancient Greek, Latin, early Catholic church popes, art. It was great.

I think people really need to experience stuff like this be it the way I did it, the way the article has it or just going to a 'quiet retreat' or some such.

Our lives are over-saturated with things screaming for our attention.