Reconnecting with good friends . . .
I spent the week end in Augusta, MO, leading my 12th annual writer’s retreat at F.R.E.S.H. Renewal. Many of the same individuals come yearly, but always there are a few new participants and they add a richness that’s so appreciated, much like a contrasting, vivid color woven through a tapestry in a spot where you’d least expect it.
The participants and I have become good friends over the years. And I look forward to this fall gathering with both excited and thoughtful anticipation. It’s a restful, comforting week end, one that includes lots of laughter, much needed quiet reflection, and of course, good food. Occasionally tears are added to the mix. The men and women who come get honest, deeply honest about their lives as they explore and then write about their interior spaces. That honesty, that deep digging, gives rise to both the laughter and the necessary tears that bless all of us.
This week end was no different. There were 21 of us who gathered in the living room of the chateau to talk Friday night while we made our s’mores over the fireplace. We went to bed knowing that Saturday would be the beginning of this particular journey, these particular writing assignments. Morning moved everyone to a favorite spot in the house to meditate and think and write whatever was crying to be told in response to the first assignment.
I’ve thought, from year one, that there was something very special about this retreat center. It summons the best in us, I think. It’s as though the Spirits surround us, calling to us to speak the messages, all of the messages, hidden away in our hearts. The result is that people make discoveries they didn’t even know were hidden away. We are all blessed by what gets shared and each one of us is lifted a bit higher on our own journey as we listen to each other read.
We don’t gather to compare or criticize what any one of us thinks or how any one of us speaks or writes. We leave those behaviors at home. We come to this place as loving fellow travelers wanting nothing more than to encourage each other to stretch in whatever way one desires. We lift spirits. Our own is lifted too in the very act of being a loving witness to each other. What we do in this setting is a practice that we could duplicate in every setting if we so chose. In fact, it’s a practice that could change the world we live in if each one of us took into every setting of every day what we give so lovingly to each other here, in this retreat house in Augusta.
May we all consider the part we could be playing in the lives of one another now. Look and listen and encourage. We could move mountains. Couldn’t we. . .
