Retreat Weekend 2009

Hiawatha, Iowa. Lovely place for a retreat. I mean, what else is there to do? Oh, sure, it's right next to Cedar Rapids, and not all that far from Des Moines, but even so... it's well-suited as a site to facilitate getting away from the world's busy-ness.



Simple living at its best. Off the grid, where possible.



Here are my earth-friendly accomodations:






Just kidding. That's the root cellar where they keep potatoes. ;)

THIS is what I stayed in. A secluded solar-powered straw-bale hut.



And lest I felt too isolated, it was a short walk to a lodge building,



which was, itself, right by the main conference center building,



which was gorgeous inside, really. Even dramatic in spots.



and designed in such a way so as to bring as much nature into the facility as possible. This is a prayer room - beautiful.



And really, the hermitage I stayed in was meant to do the same - bring nature in. It was simple, but comfortable.





The only thing missing was a decent coffee maker. I mean.. a percolator? Hey, it's a retreat center, not an antique shop. So, I made do with a tea kettle and some powdered instant from Hy-Vee. Nasty.



One of the highlights, though, was their outdoor labyrinth. "Walking the pattern", as Roger Zelazny describes it in "Chronicles of Amber", wasn't the electrifying struggle that it is on that fantasy world, nor was I transported anywhere when I got to the center, either, but...



I did have a few insights as I walked, about the haphazard and winding paths our lives take en route to our ultimate destination. My own life is no less unfathomable than the design of this labyrinth. The constant throughout, though, has been God at the center - always there, no matter how circuitous my path, toward or away.



As a whole, the entire weekend was great. I relaxed enough to get bored, read enough to get sleepy and take naps, got outside enough to feel friendly with nature, and had comforting & cozy warm accommodations in a very nurturing environment. :) Aww..

What's more, I came away refreshed & happy, and with a really good perspective on things. It's been a while since I've been this optimistic.

joy redux

.


surprising delight
fleeting taste of perfection
left longing for more


.


This explains it. This is what I've experienced. :)

Ebb and Flow

Rest so as to Work

Sleep so as to Wake

Receive so as to Serve

Conserve so as to Give

Retreat so as to Advance

There is a rhythm to life, a right time for everything. (Eccl. 3)

Right now, it's time for a retreat (to a straw bale hut in the woods, no less!) Going off the grid for a while, literally, to contemplate, to inquire, to assess, to envision, and... to feel.

Back on Tuesday.

In or Out?

In GC505DE this term, we are looking at how people today come to faith, and whether the church helps or hurts that process. The prof introduced an idea that, in the past, the church has followed this sequence in bringing people into fellowship:

behave
believe
belong

In other words, first clean up your act. Be decent - act like us. Then profess your faith in this particular little ceremony we use. After that, perhaps we'll let you join us at a potluck supper. That is, if you bring a dish to pass, and dress like the rest of us.

There is a shift underway, though, to recognize that this is not how people come into the church, normally. The sequence is more like:

belong
believe
become

If you are welcomed, regardless of appearance or behavior, and a sense of belonging grows on you, maybe you'll listen to what's being discussed, and come to belief. Once a transition to faith has happened, so does a desire to become like the One in whom you place your faith. And you have a network of people right there, with whom you already belong, to help you with that.

On our class discussion board, we put our reflections on the readings and lectures from each week. We read some other people's reflections and comment back. One guy responded to mine like this:

"I would agree with your thoughts on being careful of labeling people "in or out", "on or off", "sinner or saint." This really ties in well with what Geoff discussed in his lecture on moving from the idea of behave-believe-belong, to belong-believe-become. In this new era of the church, I feel more and more people running away from churches that have this "us and them" mentality. The churches I see growing around me are those who realize coming to faith and the process of discipleship afterwords is much more of a journey than belonging to a club or not. You're right, doing evangelism void of relationship simply just doesn't cut it in the culture we live in. I would say a majority of the people in my church are there because they feel like they belong through relationships. It's becoming less and less about the name or denomination on the door." -----JA

Right on.

Wild Wintergreen

Actually got to chew some on Sunday. :)



Now I can see what the artificial flavor is based on; the natural stuff is better (of course). Where did I find it, you ask? My sister & husband have this little cabin in the northwoods of NE Wisconsin, and I hadn't seen it before, so it was time for a visit.



It was about a two hour drive from the big city to their "fire lane" (what passes for a street in the backwoods),



and I finally could see some tall white birch in gold leaf.



No sugar maples on their 8 acres, but a beautiful little brook at the south end. Lovely setting.



So even if next weekend is rainy and I'm stuck inside, at least for one day I got to tramp around in the woods, rustle through the leaves,



and watch the chipmunks scurrying around getting their cache of nuts ready for winter. Nice day. :)

Finally! A decent Fall day.

I was about to call 2009 "the year that October forgot".


But yesterday was gorgeous, just the way you want October to be: sunny, 50-55, no breeze, leaf color showing up. Lovely.


I prowled about a bit, and took a drive down Summit Avenue all the way to its Western end at the Mississippi River. On the way, I passed St. Thomas University. Lovely old neo-gothic main building, and beautiful homes lining the street. Kind of reminiscent of the Highland Park neighborhood in Milwaukee.

Then at the end of the street, there is an overlook above the river,








with a WWI memorial.



Pretty little spot, where finally some leaf color was beginning to show itself.



Turning around and heading back, St. Paul (Catholic) Seminary looked nice in the afternoon light.



I'll be back there Friday morning to chat with the guy who's in charge of Diaconate Formation for the Archdiocese. Just discussion at this point, nothing definite. I need to finish Seminary first!



Anyway, a lovely afternoon to finish one of my books for GC505DE, this one on how postmodern people come to faith. Interesting ideas, but.. a discussion for another time. :)



Hopefully today is just as beautiful as we head over to Spooner to see my sister & husband as they close up the cabin for the season. And just as hopefully, this kind of weather will persist into next weekend, so that my "retreat experience" is all I want it to be. mmhmm.

The Three Hour Tour

Relient K. With a set decorated like Gilligan's Island. You can tell when a band is not pretentious - they don't take themselves too seriously. And when a band throws in to their regular set, songs like the Subway theme ("$5 foot longs") and "Under The Sea" from The Little Mermaid... they do know how to be silly. I like these guys.



And so did all the 14 year old girls, their 34 year old moms, and their 54 year old grandparents, apparently. Reinforces my thesis that this is a period in pop music that multiple generations can appreciate and share. It was my own kid who introduced me to this band (and one of the openers, Copeland), some 8 years ago when he was probably 14, and so I thought I would return the favor and introduce him to the first of two opening bands, Barcelona.



They were really good.. better than Copeland. And their freshman CD effort was only $10 at the merch table, so... yeah. Copy for J2 coming up.



The show was at Cabooze, with the same old biker bar again next door, and since this was an all ages show on a school night, the doors opened at 5:00, with the last encore over at 9:05. So, cheap eats - burgers and brats in The Joint next door.



And seats in the balcony this time, with no one to block sight line, and only 15 middle school girls (and two moms) on the couches behind us for distraction, all giggling and taking pictures of each other (instead of the band - I guess when you're 14 and female you are more interested in posing for your girlfriends for later use in Facebook, than in the music).



Me, I like the music. And cheap tap beer. And breaks between sets to catch up on reading for Seminary. It's called multitasking.



Copeland wasn't so great. I was underwhelmed. Too bad; I really liked some of their early ballads, like "Brightest", "No One Really Wins", "She Changes Your Mind", "Pin Your Wings", and "Coffee". Barcelona really blew them out of the water. They should have switched the band order.



But the headliners were terrific. Relient K is upbeat and at the top of their game. Their latest CD is a winner. And thanks to Amazon.mp3, it was only $3.99 to download. :) It was a very good show, all around, with a solid band front and center, supported by decent opening acts, and an audience who sang along to nearly every song. Even got home early on a work night! Yay.

Will you warm up already, please?

In about 10 days I set out for my annual retreat weekend, and I would sure prefer that it was actually Autumn, during the season of Autumn.

I'd like to be able to walk around in the crisp Fall air, in just a light fleece jacket. I don't want to wear my winter coat and gloves!

I'd like to be able to kick through a pile of dry leaves and hear them rustle like paper. I don't want to brush snow off my wet, cold shoes!

I'd like to be able to sit outside of a coffee shop in the sunshine sipping a mug of hot cider. I don't want to be stuck inside because of sleet and a howling wind.

It would be nice for Winter to simply admit it made a mistake, and go back where it came from. Let me enjoy myself, will ya? I would like to come away from the weekend lifted up & refreshed, not beaten up and drained!

Is ten days enough notice for you? May I have one large order of Autumn weather, please, with a little joy served warm on the side?

Anyone out there?

Most of us have had the experience of calling out in a large, empty space only to hear an echo of our own voice coming back to us. Echoes are only possible in certain acoustically-predisposed spaces, which allow the sound waves from our voice to bounce back to our ears with enough delay to be distinct from that which we heard in our heads as we initially spoke.

Hearing an echo of one's own voice is a lonely feeling. Especially if that's all one hears, and no other voice calls back in reply.

Though lonely, I think that there's still a measure of comfort in an echo. It tells you that, somehow, the space into which you spoke is not infinitely empty. There's an end to it, as your own voice coming back to you proves.

I think it's actually scarier, lonelier, when you call out into an empty space... and nothing comes back.

Nothing.



If you call out, and don't even hear your own voice in echo, you wonder... is anyone hearing me at all? Anyone? Am I alone here?

I think the cyber-version of this is messaging someone, whether it be text, voice, I.M., or email, and then ... nothing.

Nothing.



I think cyberspace could use a good echo app. (And I don't mean an email that bounces back "undeliverable.")

Zombie Pub Crawl

College town. Homecoming. Conference win. Saturday night. Party district near campus. New cult movie out. Zombies walk the streets! Oh, those crazy kids...

The Woody Harrelson movie, Zombieland, is fast becoming a cult movie, and the U of M football team's victory over Purdue on homecoming brought the party animals out on the streets near campus. Party zombies, really. Lots of charcoaled eye sockets and fake-y decaying skin and red stains on white shirts. They looked like fugitives from Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. :)

I would show pictures, but it was too darn cold to stand on the street and let them pose for me. 36 degrees and windy! What a night for a pub crawl, costumed no less. Ugh. Plus, it was a long walk since there was no parking anywhere in sight; all the lots were full near The Cedar Cultural Center (which was a new venue for me, too, so lots of circling on unfamiliar streets.)



The Cedar is definitely a vintage entertainment spot, and proud of it, given the looks of their marquees.



Finally managed to get inside and join D, SQ & ST for the show, which by this time was SRO, although I eventually scavenged a couple of folding chairs and set them up near the concessions.

I had been busy buying tickets for an upcoming show, so missed the opener's first two numbers. But, boy, this Vienna Teng girl is talented! Great singing voice and skilled at both keyboards and looping devices. Only wish I could have sat closer.



But after her set, she hung out at the merch table, to promote her new CD that she was out of. :( What is up with that? This is the third time in as many months that an act was sold out of their current material. This should be tour management 101, man. Have product!

So, it's off to the library, I guess. She's definitely worth pursuing, especially for free. :) Same lousy seats for the headliner, Over The Rhine, so the pictures are no better. But they sure were swell. :)



What a fine show from one of my new faves. Low key and relaxed, but intense at the right times, too. And funny, too - there were costumed zombies in the audience and after OTR came back for their encore, Karin had blackened her eyes, and dragged one of the living dead up onto the stage for a stiff-armed zombie waltz. Cute. :)



So, despite the cold and the awkward logistics, it was a fine evening. Not to mention that we ran into two different people that we knew at the show. Guess that means we're becoming locals!

Up next at the Cedar in a couple of weeks: Asleep At The Wheel. :) Ooh, Happy Birthday to me!

A subtle reminder (updated 10/12)

... of where we live.

Iowa State has a viticulture department and I'm on the mailing list for their newsletter. Well, yesterday's edition focused on what to do in your vineyard now that harvest season is over. And I thought... is it really over already? Yes I tasted of my vines' produce (all two grapes!) a couple of weeks ago, but - everything's still green outside. No leaves are dropping.

Then this morning, I woke up to this:



Aaaaaah! Isn't this a tad premature? I mean, just two weeks ago it was 70+, and had been for most all of September. What gives? But as the newsletter said, the average date of the first hard frost is ... now!



And as if to punctuate the point, God left 1/2" of snow on the deck (according to my handy-dandy chair gauge), even though everything else is still green.

Naturally, the dog (who hasn't seen snow for over three years) went out and rolled in it. Mmm... refreshing! So this year, we have something new on the deck... paw prints in the snow. :)



(and a wiping towel by the door.)



******* update 10/12 *******

This is getting kind of creepy.





whatever your point is, God, you can stop making it now. Anytime.

Big Airports, Small Airports

Doesn't seem to make any difference.

I had always thought there was an advantage to flying into and out of small airports. Now I'm not so sure.

At MSP, there are two terminals, one massive and one teeny, and I definitely prefer the teeny one. But this time I used both, since my ticket was with one carrier on the outbound and a different one on the return. Which could be a problem for parking, except both terminals are on the light rail line about 2 minutes apart, so I parked at the teeny one for the return flight, and took light rail over to the massive terminal for the outbound. Worked pretty smooth.

So, when I got to my destination, a small suburban airport north of NYC (having a total of three gates), I thought it would be pretty slick. Nope. One problem after another both directions. Dumpy place and poorly run. However, on the return flight I had to connect in Atlanta, and Hartsfield just as was easy as it could be - very efficient and smooth. Blew my small-airport theory all to pieces. Ah, well.

Just glad to be home. I hate airports, and have a much better time if I can drive, even up to 500 miles (which is about my practical limit, not to mention the company's limit on being willing to reimburse for mileage vs plane fare.) Two days of being locked in a conference room is no fun, either.



Actually that's my classroom (and the profs) for SP505 on Thursday nights. But you get the idea. Four walls and a screen. Ugh.

But at least the office was nice. First time I'd been there. A very wooded setting, with a river snaking through the property,




and some cool artwork on the walls.



On the way to & from the office were all these great stone fences, a'la Robert Frost's New England. Lovely. But the hotel shuttle wouldn't stop to let me take pictures. Go figure. ;)

The hotel was fine, nothing special. Except maybe the little satin pillow on the bed.



I like how it feels against my cheek falling asleep. Aww.. it's kind of like a binky. Which is comforting when you know you'll be eating your next morning's breakfast in the room, catered by the fast food joint across the street that you wind up walking to in the rain, in your sleepshirt & slippers. Don't ask.



A satin pillow on the cheek is one of my guilty pleasures, just like the walkway between the B & C concourses at O'Hare. If I have to connect in Chicago, I try to fly United, just to see it again.



When you see these, can you hear it?

"The moving walkway is now ending, please look down." :)





Like Brett Favre said last week about football: "it never gets old, even though I do." I hear ya, Brett. I can think of a handful of things in that category, two of which I just mentioned: satin travel pillows and the moving walkway at ORD.

As for the other things that never get old, even though I do...

oh, just never you mind. :)

Can Richie come out and play?

This morning I take off for New York and a couple days of business meetings with my new unit. Thankfully, it's not in Manhattan, but in one of the burbs in Westchester County, so I can avoid LaGuardia & Kennedy altogether.

I wonder if New Rochelle is around there.. you know, where Rob & Laura & little Richie lived when I was a kid. Richie was my age. I had such a crush on Laura Petrie. She was sort of like "my friend's hot mom" before there was such a genre. I think it was those black leotards she always wore around the house. Mmhmm. (at least, I think they were black. They could have been navy, but who could tell on a black & white TV?)

Ah well, Mary Tyler Moore is probably in an assisted living facility by now, if she's even still alive. And based on recent photos, Larry Mathews seems to have aged less gracefully than yours truly. :) So, I think I'll count my blessings, and not bother looking for Richie's old house. It probably won't look as good in color, anyway.

No saving, fixing, or setting anyone straight

... not in Spiritual Formation class, no sir!

Interesting class Thursday nights. It's all about the process of being transformed into Christ-likeness, a'la 2 Corinthians 3:18, with special emphasis on five key attributes that the profs (and their department) set as goals for the students, as things which they believe should characterize Seminary grads:

Authentic Piety
Differentiation of Self
Emotional Intelligence
Humility
Generativity

I won't detail these.. there's far too much to share here. We were asked to take inventory of ourselves according to these categories, and assess in which we need to make the most progress. Ouch. Not a happy task. Suffice it to say that at one point, I held up the sheet which defined these characteristics and said to the class: "I'm glad this is not my final year of Sem, because according to this list, I'm sure not ready to graduate!" That got a laugh, and a lot of sympathetic nods and Amens.

So, this is the topic of the course - how formation happens in the spiritual life.

We have to.. oops, we are privileged to.. do this in small groups. My little band of spiritual derelicts included a couple of people I knew already. There were actually several familiar faces in the class, which was kinda cool. I even remembered their names, and they remembered mine.

Just before we headed off to talk about our struggles and failings, we were given the advice in the title of this post. In small groups we don't save people, we don't fix people, we don't set people straight. We ask questions. We wonder aloud about stuff. And (my favorite), we think of silence as another member of the group; we let silence have a turn to share.

I like that. :) I don't do it very well, but I like the idea just the same. Hiya, Silence! What you up to these days? ... oh, mmhmm ... I see ... you don't get out much, do you?

Yeah, yeah, funny boy. It really IS a good idea to give silence a turn. He's actually a pretty good guy when you get to know him.

Finally, in addition to the readings and assignments, one of the things we need to do this term is to identify a new spiritual practice and do it at least weekly, if not more.

Here's some websites the profs gave us to explore for possible spiritual practice ideas, and they range from Evangelical to Jesuit to New Age. Some are a little too squishy for my taste, but I've found at least one idea which I may just implement. Heck, it's only for one quarter; how bad could it be? ;)

http://renovare.us/
http://www.practicingourfaith.org/
http://www.sacredspace.ie/
http://www.jesuit.org/Spirituality/DailyExamen/default.aspx
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

They must be here someplace...

...or else they don't exist.



I'm neck-deep in studying now, and was trying to knock off the last of my first week's reading assignments while pounding down my two buy-one-get-one-free medium sugar-free french vanilla lattes this afternoon at McDonalds (the one near campus, so surrounded by other students at least pretending to study), and then with a mouthful of hot coffee I start laughing out loud at what I'm reading, choking on my coffee trying to stifle laughing, snorting some out my nose (ow!), making a mess of things, and then giggling to myself afterwards.

When something strikes you funny, and you don't WANT to laugh, sometimes it takes on an inordinate amount of humor simply because you are trying NOT to laugh. Why this stuck me as funny, I'm not exactly sure. But the silliness increased as I tried to shut it off.

The author was responding to a common objection to Christianity (one articulated recently by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens) that the existence of God cannot be scientifically proven, and neither can the supernatural (as in "miracles"). He remembered the remark of the first Russian cosmonaut returning from space that he did not find God there. If you can't see it or prove it, it doesn't exist.

In reply, the author quoted Alvin Plantinga, who said that looking for the supernatural among the natural (or for the metaphysical within the physical), was "like the drunk who insisted on looking for his lost car keys only under the streetlight on the grounds that the light was better there. In fact, it would go the drunk one better: it would insist that because the keys would be hard to find in the dark, they must be under the light."

:D

(It was really hilarious at McDonalds. Guess you had to be there.)

Love, and risk your heart

"Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation."

----- C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man