{"id":1074,"date":"2012-05-15T12:13:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T17:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.snc.edu\/susanallen\/?p=1074"},"modified":"2012-05-15T12:13:08","modified_gmt":"2012-05-15T17:13:08","slug":"i-slept-like-a-bishop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/uncategorized\/i-slept-like-a-bishop\/","title":{"rendered":"I slept like a bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The book of daily meditations thoughtfully provided in my room at Leffe Abbey opens at today\u2019s date and Matthew 7:7. I knocked, and the door was opened to me. And what a door it is! Instead of the guest-house cell I was expecting, P\u00e8re Hugues showed me to the Bishop\u2019s Bedroom. The hospitaller has just brought me a tray of tea and choice of Belgian chocolates. (This is the third time I have been offered chocolate since my arrival at 4:30 p.m.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The community in Dinant, Belgium, has invited me to stay the night on my way to my rendezvous with the college group in Munich tomorrow evening. Their abbey lies on the Meuse and, literally, on the Leffe. The foundation is built over a branch of the tributary, which can be seen rushing under a grille in the courtyard and, on occasion, in the cellars.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I am not the only guest at the abbey tonight. Two Benedictine sisters are making a retreat, and a student is here for a week, revising for his exams. Also seeking shelter are\u00a0 the brother of one of the priests and his family, temporarily displaced by the same accident which delayed my arrival. Two goods trains collided between Dinant and Yvoir, closing the railway line for a week. No loss of life resulted but one of the trains was carrying some flammable substance \u2013 my French was not equal to understanding exactly what it was \u2013 and several hundred families have been evacuated because of the danger of explosion and\/or poisonous fumes. The whole valley is up in arms at this accident-waiting-to-happen \u2013 apparently there has been much tut-tutting at the speed at which these trains travel with their dangerous loads.<\/p>\n

Talk at the supper table turns to trains in general. P\u00e8re Beno\u00eet, the prior, is an expert at timetables, and will advise me on the best route to Munich. P\u00e8re Herv\u00e9 will drive me to Ceney tomorrow morning so I can avoid the Dinant line. P\u00e8re Dominique shows me the Swiss conductor\u2019s fob watch and station clock he was given by an uncle. (He has the movie \u201cHugo\u201d \u2013 set in a railway station \u2013 on DVD, but has yet to watch it. I totally overextend all the French available to me in efforts to explain that the plot of the Scorsese film truly turns on questions of vocation, and we are all quite relieved when I stop.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book of daily meditations thoughtfully provided in my room at Leffe Abbey opens at today\u2019s date and Matthew 7:7. I knocked, and the door was opened to me. And what a door it is! Instead of the guest-house cell…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[116,221],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}