We could see the housing development in the distance. We saw flickering candles and children trick or treating, as they do in communities that want to keep Halloween separate from Sunday.
On Sunday night, we took an evening walk along the wide drive that connects the Abbey to the main road.
It's lined with huge trees draped with Spanish moss.
We saw a pair of monks in the distance, and they, too, looked ghostly. I told my friend that if she vanished, I wouldn't be surprised. It all seemed so otherworldly that I wouldn't have been surprised by something truly supernatural.
I rarely feel the "thin space" that so many feel on Halloween, that time when the separation between worlds is thinnest. That night, I caught a glimpse, there on those very historic grounds.
I would not have been surprised to see the ghost of a runaway slave or a Native American.
The above is a detail from a Jonathan Green painting, "Seeking," that hangs in a private space in the Abbey. I got to see it as part of a retreat in 2016.
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