Merton's Abbey; Earth Sanctuary

Friday's RNS report features a look at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Ky., where silence speaks louder than words. Roy Hoffman reports: Like a pale fortress over the scarlet hills, the Abbey of Gethsemani rises at the end of Monk's Road. Founded in 1848 by French Trappist monks, Gethsemani is now home to about 70 monks who spend their days in work and prayer. It's also the yearly destination for 4,500 faithful, who stay for short periods in the retreat house, and an equal number of visitors who come to walk the grounds and visit the church and reception center. Visiting Gethsemani, it's impossible not to think about onetime resident Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who wrote elegant poetry as well as a spiritual memoir, "The Seven Storey Mountain," among other books.

A spiritual retreat is not a vacation, writes correspondent Nanine Alexander in her first-person account: The sky is clouded but promising the first day of my solo retreat at Earth Sanctuary on Washington's Whidbey Island. I brush my teeth and dress, ready to go for my early-morning walk. I step quickly onto the back porch and close the door. Locking myself out. And so begins another day on the road to serenity. As a member of the generation that went in search of itself, I've come to realize that a lot of us are searching again. The number of people going on individual retreats in search of meaning in their lives is on the rise, according to the Travel Industry Association of America, a leading nonprofit trade association. But don't think this quest for meaning is limited to my baby boom generation. My quest was rooted in something very simple: I need periodic escapes from people and noise.