MONCKS CORNER, S.C. - Oak-shrouded Mepkin Abbey on a quiet reach of the upper Cooper River is about as about as far away as one can get from the lobbyists, hardball politics and posturing of Washington.

Yet it is here that a group of lawmakers from both parties gathered Friday to discuss common ground that goes deeper than which side of the aisle they are on.

The annual bipartisan retreat sponsored by the Washington-based Faith and Politics Institute gives seven lawmakers and their wives a chance to discuss their faith and values as they pertain to politics.

This year's retreat is sponsored by South Carolina Congressmen Jim Clyburn, a Democrat, and Henry Brown, a Republican. The names of the other attendees were not released.

The object is "making sure we do what we can to have our value system a part of political discussions and part of the political institutions," Clyburn said.

Values sometimes get overlooked in the political process, he added.

"Sure they do. I think it's because we have gotten ourselves as a nation in an instant gratification mode. Everything has to be done right now. We don't spend the kind of deliberative moments that we used to spend in trying to develop an approach to politics, an approach to government and an approach to each other," he said.

The topic of the retreat is faith, memory and healing and will allow the lawmakers to discuss some of the wounds from the past. In South Carolina, those might be wounds from the days of segregation.

Clyburn is a black Democrat and Brown a white Republican. Clyburn said the two are good friends and noted his mother-in-law and Brown's mother lived across the road from each other.

"We both have very vivid memories of what this part of the country was all about and we both, I believe, have real good intentions about how to go forward and build upon the efforts to overcome the past and learn from some of it," Clyburn said.

The congressmen won't have to follow the monk's routine - indeed it might be hard for lawmakers to do so. The monks awake at 3 a.m. and observe silence until about 8 a.m. each morning.

But Saturday afternoon, however, the schedule calls for quiet reflection.

"That's something most members of Congress don't come by often," said the Rev. Doug Tanner, the president of the Faith and Politics Institute, which works to provide opportunities for lawmakers to get together and discuss values and common ground.

"We're just really excited about this," said the abbey's prior, Aelred Hagan.

He said while the Faith and Politics Institute has never held a retreat at the abbey, the abbey has hosted many other groups.

"It's a part of monastic hospitality that goes back almost to the dawn of Christianity," he said.

Mepkin Abbey was founded in 1949 when 29 monks arrived from the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky.

Henry Laurens, who later served as the first president of the Continental Congress, purchased the property in 1762.

The property was purchased in 1936 by publisher and philanthropist Henry Luce and his wife Clare Booth Luce. They donated the property to the Abbey of Gethsemani 13 years later.