faith unfaded

There’s a quiet you can only hear when everything else is turned off. Not muted, not minimized—off. That’s what keeps drawing me back to the Abbey of Gethsemani, a working Trappist monastery tucked deep into the rolling hills of Kentucky. This is my third visit, and every time feels like stepping onto a mountaintop with God alone. 

During the first visit, the silence was hard for me. My eyes sought out other rebel eyes who would talk. I went to the places on the grounds where talking was allowed. I put earbuds in at night to listen to music or watch television shows. My spirit was calmer the second time, and I was beginning to appreciate the silence more. This time, I arrived with a stillness already in my spirit, and find myself in silence even in areas where talking is permitted.

The way silence works here isn’t mystical or monk-led — it’s practiced. The retreat house is simple by design: no TVs, no chatter, no pressure to perform or produce. The bells do ring— quite loudly!— announcing prayers throughout the day, but the rest is quiet by choice. Not imposed. Not policed. Just gently encouraged. It’s remarkable how quickly your soul responds when the world stops tugging at you.

In the Gift Shop is a hallway of simple framed panels telling the history of the Abbey: founded in 1848, home to generations of Trappist monks, a place where prayer and work blend into one continuous offering. The rules posted here are beautifully simple—respect the silence, unplug, be mindful of others, and allow yourself to rest in the presence of God. It’s not a list of restrictions; it’s permission. Permission to lay down the noise. Permission to unclench your spirit. Permission to step away from the world long enough to remember who you are and who God is.

That’s what this place does for me now. It resets me— emotionally, mentally, and  spiritually. I’ve rested on benches overlooking the hills, written in rockers on library porch with nothing but the sound of birds outside the screened enclosure, and stared out the window of my dorm-style room watching fog rise over the fields. There is a beauty outside, yes, but the real beauty is the one inside: the clarity, the peace, the realization that I am no longer who I was the first time I came here.

This year’s visit has been gentler than that first one. I am not working through a crisis; I am simply meeting God on the mountaintop. And in that stillness, I can see the woman He has shaped from all my valleys. I don’t resent the pain it took to get here. I don’t hide from the mistakes that built the road. I honor them. They taught me to listen. They taught me to surrender. They taught me to look for God in the quiet, not the chaos.

That’s why I’ll keep coming back as long as I can. Because something holy happens when you go off-grid with God. When the phone is out of reach. When the conversations stop. When the world can’t find you, but heaven can. You remember that rest is not a weakness—it’s worship. And stillness is not an escape—it’s an encounter.

The Abbey gives me a place to breathe. A place to hear. A place to reset before going back into the world. And every time I leave, I carry the quiet with me a little longer than before. Because when God meets you in the silence, it changes the way you listen everywhere else.