A Retired Rector's Reflections

On the banks of Lake Geneva, at Bollingen, the great Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung built a house where he lived during the summer months each year. As time progressed he extended the house and in 1931 he built a room in the tower of the house where, he said, “I could exist for myself alone. I had in mind what I had seen in Indian houses, in which there is usually an area though it may be only a corner of a room separated off by a curtain to which the inhabitants can withdraw.”

In this ‘retiring room,’ Jung remarked; ‘I am by myself. I keep the key with me all the time, no one else is allowed in except with my permission. It is a place of seclusion … a place of spiritual concentration.’

In my life and ministry I have very much valued Jung’s concept of the retiring room. In my work in a maximum security prison especially,  it was my hope that the chaplaincy, and in particular the chapel could be a place of peace, ‘spiritual concentration,’ – a retiring room – for all prisoners and staff. I was tremendously encouraged when one ‘tough’ prisoner remarked, in a discussion group, “I love coming here to the chapel, it is a place where I can be myself and not pretend …’

This concept also informed my parish ministry. In my years at St Chrysostom’s, Manchester, I worked hard to encourage us all at the church, set in a multi cultural and multi faith area, to have the church doors open as much as possible so that all people could find a welcome, a place of seclusion, a place of prayer, a place to rejoice or to weep – a place of spiritual concentration. Not only, then, at public worship but also, and more especially, for individual times of private prayer and comfort.

Jung’s retiring room was, of course, in his personal domestic situation. That in itself invites us to consider the value of having a place of spiritual focus in our homes. This may be a particular chair, an ‘icon corner,’ or an image in a particular place, perhaps simply a prayer shawl used when praying or reflecting, ior even a room. Priests, and all clergy, I hope would welcome the opportunity to help people in having such a dedicated spiritual space at home.

For myself, I have recently had a small ‘garden’ room made in my garden. It is my “retiring room,” very simply furnished and very quiet. In it are some objects of spiritual meaning to me, including my grandfather’s rosary, small stones collected from shrines I have visited, and icons of Julian of Norwich and St Godric.

It is my hope that in the same way that Jung remarked of Bollingen ‘Here I am in the midst of my true life, I am most deeply myself’ so my physical ‘retiring room’ and the symbol of it, may be for me also.