I'm hoping (and planning) to take a few days next month to enjoy a personal retreat. I know some people who deliberately seek out spiritual solitude, for one week out of every year -- but because of my life circumstances (married with young children, serving as the sole pastor for a relatively small church) I'm just going for three days, and something more along the lines of every three years. Someday I would love to develop a discipline of doing this more regularly and for a more extended period of time, but for now I'm excited at the prospect of three days away on a personal retreat! So now I'm in the preparation phase. And specifically, I'm looking to find a place where I can do a lot of reading, praying, walking, journaling, and just generally seeking God...

But where? That's the real question.

It's recently occurred to me that a lot of what I'm looking for is basically a short-term monastic experience. Yes, there are still several monastic communities (monasteries, convents, abbeys, monk, nuns, etc.) living and functioning here in the Netherlands; and yes, many of them still encourage short-term visitors, in the tradition of Saint Benedict. So I think I might finally be ready to overcome an old aversion to monasteries, dating back to the earliest days of our family living in Europe, when we learned that an old friend had been using monasteries as a meeting point for him and his mistress -- effectively allowing himself to maintain the guise of a pious pastor, even while cheating on his wife and paving the way for an untimely exit from ministry in Amsterdam. Subconsciously, I learned to avoid monasteries in the same way that I avoid brothels. But now I realize how ridiculous it can be to allow such an association to remain unchallenged in my mind. Particularly when it comes to trying to find a location for a personal retreat...

So I'm looking into visiting a monastery, and I'm discovering that monks and nuns aren't always the best webmasters. The information on monasteries in the Netherlands is widely scattered and largely inaccessible. So I'm working on developing a list, which I will eventually publish here on this website, for future reference, and I wonder if there's anyone else out there who might be able to give me some leads to monasteries that I might have overlooked. Have you ever been to a monastery? If so, which one(s)? What separates a good monastic experience from a poor one? What kinds of things might I need to know in preparing for a spiritual retreat in such an environment? Any personal tips or e-mails or Facebook comments would be greatly appreciated.