About 2:15 this afternoon, I'm on my way to work at the carpenter shop, and I come to the top of the hill in front of the farm office where the gravel road slopes about one hundred feet to a bridge over a creek. About half way down, I spot a small red car off to the side of the road with its tires spinning. A woman has just climbed out of the passenger side and, about the time it occurs to me that the couple has run off the road, I'm suddenly on my butt, sliding toward them across the ground. The road under me is a perfect sheet of ice. It turns out the couple was coming up the hill, hit the same patch of ice, and lost control of their car which did a couple of "360's" before landing in the ditch. I accompanied them to the Welcome Center at Trappist Caskets where we called brother Dennis, the monk who pulls cars out of ditches. Heading back to the car, we were just in time to see Dennis' massive white pickup truck arrive at that patch of ice at the top of the hill, do a couple of complete rotations and careen into the ditch about twenty five feet from the couple's car. By the time we reached their car, Dennis had abandoned his truck and was walking back to "Camp Grant", the large complex where we keep our farm equipment. A few minutes later we saw him again, now at the wheel of a huge John Deere tractor. This is one of those new state-of-the-art nuclear-powered mega-tractors that are the pride of the Mid-west. It's wheels are bigger than I am and are wrapped in massive chain-link. Hardly believing what we were seeing, this "Uber-Tractor" hits that patch of ice at the top of the hill and starts careening down the hill like a baby-carriage into a line of small trees opposite Dennis' stranded truck. Just then a giant semi enters from the highway at the opposite end of the ice bound road and starts down the hill toward the bridge. Horrified at the thought of this monster truck losing control and careening down the hill, we all frantically wave our arms for him to stop. He stops, only to discover that, being half way down the icy slope, he can't get enough traction to back out again. Now, even if we get the car out of the ditch, the road is blocked by stranded trucks on both ends. I'm getting the giggles — is it nerves? It occurs to me my light mood could be an irritant to the two IBM employees stranded in the red car. They are on and off their cell phones in quick anxious conversations with people far away, growing more tense by the minute. No doubt the ground feels harder to them, the snow colder, the wind more biting. They are far from home. Everyone takes a turn slipping on the ice, arms flailing in the air, a moment later sprawled in the middle of the road. I slip and fall and, once again, am conscious of a lightness of heart. It occurs to me that each time I slip and fall, the place I land — is home. Sitting there, I realize, I'm just a "stone's throw" from the bed where I sleep, the seat in choir where I pray, the carpenter shop where I work, the table where I take my meals, and the cemetery where I'll be buried some day. I'm home. As my appreciation of this simple truth sinks in, the monastic enclosure, which some might regard as a prison, seems to expand even infinitely. I keep slipping and falling, and I keep landing in the right place. The chaos of this afternoon's events is affirming and making clearer to me that I am where I belong, and right where I want to be. I am home.

Father Raphael