Mr. Woodward explores his experiences of a long weekend retreat with the Trappist monks of Holy Cross Abbey outside Berryville, Virginia. The daily life of the monastery is one of devotion to faith and personal testing. His stay is not without interesting personal observations. There is no television, either, no newspapers, none of the lines that wire the brain into a world of ceaseless sound and motion. There is only time.
Silence is still the norm, but it is no longer a fetish.
We don't want to interrupt a brother's solitude with chatter. Abandoning them is difficult. Try talking with God, not to God. Woodward comes to realize he has been tryhing with great difficulty to make his weekend retreat into silence a productive journalist one. The film illustrates how he worked with children in their exploring rhythm percussion sounds made possible with the human voice and resources within the classroom.