Doves at Lebh Shomea Retreat Center

Lebh Shomea is a silent retreat center south of Corpus Christi where I live--in Sarita, TX. "Lebh Shomea" means "listening heart." Since 1973 it has been a retreat center with single dwellings and rooms available in the old Sarita Kennedy mansion, all managed by Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) order, with Father Kelly Nemeck being the main representative of OMI there.


I spent three days (Monday-Thursday) there this week; two with friends from my Renovare Group and one on my own. I came home yesterday afternoon.

The silence was deep and wonderful. Days seemed longer, with more opportunity to pay attention to God. I sat in silence much more frequently. On Monday and Tuesday nights, my friends and I sat together in centering prayer in the community center, which is near the dovecote. It was lovely sitting in silence, with the coos of doves in the background. I am grateful that I was newly invited into daily meditation by the Holy One.

One morning I was trying to take pictures of the doves through the screen of the dovecote, when one of the workers there approached me and asked if I would like to go in with the doves! He (Joe) found the key and let me go in and see them more closely in the environs that a former hermit Sister Maria had planned and cared for.

Formerly, Sister Maria was my spiritual director, but when she came down with Alzheimer's, that was discontinued. Then she disappeared, and I wondered what had happened to her. . . .but I never asked anyone. I asked Joe, and he told me that Sister Maria is in a nursing home in Kingsville and is very happy. He and his wife visit her, and she remembers them. She has formed a friendship with two other older ladies, and they do everything together, even sometimes getting intro trouble!

The news and the surprising opportunity to enter the dovecote were gifts, all because Joe took the time to notice and pay attention just as I had the time be present to those moments. How each of us wants to be noticed!

Here are some of my pictures of the doves: