Reflections from Retreat

Orchard Crest Camp belongs to the Southeast Gateway Area of the Christian Church - Disciples of Christ. It is located east of Fredericktown on the Castor River. The cabins have bathrooms and electricity, but the entire atmosphere is still rustic. I spend the past weekend there, at a women's retreat. I've been on retreats there before, and I've counseled at summer camp. This event is about the last one of the year as the camp will close down for winter in October. Already the trees show signs of fall approaching. Yet Orchard Crest is a welcoming place, and it is blissfully out of range of highway or aircraft noise. On a warm fall night, the only sounds are from crickets and tree frogs. By day, scores of bird species still flit in the trees and skim the river. On this weekend we were given several times to meditate and write down our thoughts. Here are some of mine.

The early morning sunlight reflects off the quiet waters of the Castor River. I'm reminded of Thoreau's famous line: "Time is but the river that I go fishing in." No fishing today, but flowing rivers always create for me a metaphor of eternity. So I walked by the river and thought about time.

Time: I don't have enough of it to do it right. I feel rushed, then I can't move. The train is coming and I just sit on the tracks and watch it coming toward me, unable to move. Hospitality needs movement and also the ability to just BE in a moment of time. I really need to let go of the concept of time, the constraints of time. Standing by the river that looks still but is inexorably moving, I wonder about the connections of time and eternity. I need to trust the reality of an eternity that can still contain my time and others' time. And still I need solitude or silent time because I can't think or feel in the midst of chaos.

Around the camp grounds were several meditation stations. The theme was centered around sayings of Jesus. As I visited at each one, I wrote these thoughts:

Jesus is the rock. I can hear a line from a hymn: "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all else is sinking sand." There are a lot of times I have been on shifting sand, if not sinking. But rocks aren't always solid, either. The rocks in the creek bed shift and tumble. How did the vulnerable, wounded man called Jesus become a rock?

Jesus is living water. Why did he say living water? We spend a lot of money to make sure there is nothing living in our drinking water before we call it safe. We know that water makes life possible, but we don't always think of it as having life on its own. Come to think of it, aren't our bodies mostly water? I forget the percentage. And we are living. Is the water in us living water? Is Jesus' image of the living water a metaphor of the incarnation? Jesus is the living water. WE are mostly living water. Jesus is within us. As Cynthia Hale said in a sermon at Quadrennial back in 1998, All that you are seeking, you have within you. Right now.

Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Will a twig of pipe vine be enough to remind me of the pure energy that sends out the vines of the forest: grape, pipe vine, Virginia creeper, trumpet, poison ivy, clematis? The vines run, climb, twist, furl-- tendril after tendril until frost cuts them down, and then they rest for a season before budding again. So we don't have to grow and bloom and bear fruit constantly, just in our own season.

Jacque Foster, my pastor and the retreat leader, asked us to imagine ourselves in the place where we go for centering quiet, and then to imagine that Jesus met us there. What would we say to each other? I thought of my garden at home. I'm not sure where this following dialogue came from, but I wrote it down as it played out in my head:

Jesus: This is a lovely garden. Did you plant it?
Me: Yes...well..some of it..others did most of the work. But the plants were yours.
Jesus: I know.
Me: Why are you here?
Jesus: Why not? Aren't I supposed to be everywhere?
Me: I guess I mean, how did you find me? I forgot to invite you. I should have invited you long ago.
Jesus: Why didn't you?
Me: I think I just forgot. I'm bad about worrying or concentrating on one thing at a time, and I forget everything else. Even you. And I know I'm not supposed to forget you.
Jesus: What would help you remember?
Me: I don't know. I am getting more forgetful. Worried about becoming old. Tired. Losing interest in things I have always loved.
Jesus: What about the slant of light through the branches, or the flash of a hummingbird's wings or a sweet scent of clematis?
Me: Yes, I know you send these reminders to me. And I thank you. I thank you.