NO retreat!
I’ve been on a lot of retreats in my life. I counted them up the other day … roughly one per year since I was 13 years old makes about 44 all together. My first one was with a group of adults in my last year of elementary school. How I ended up at the Marylake Retreat Centre in that group I’ll never know. There were school retreats and monastic retreats, in the silent monastery where I already lived and never talked to anybody anyway. Now what was that all about. There were Encounter Retreats with my students, three per year for ??? years; some of the VERY best of my experiences as an educator. Now there is the present one, the 1st Annual CPL congregational retreat.
I’m going to go home and book next years immediately! This has been one of the most satisfying and exhausting experiences of my ministerial leadership. This has been one of those experiences that defines who I am as the community leader for the Centre and who we are as a community. I’m so excited about the work we have done here. As I prepare for our last morning together … it is about 5AM right now and I’m thinking that were I at home right now I’d be sitting in the window seat and working on my lesson. I’d be drinking Starbucks and waiting for the call from my prayer partner. So stepping away form the normal is what it is all about; adjusting my perspective; getting out of the routine, and just simply looking at the world from a mountain top.
What have I discovered? I’m surrounded by extraordinarily gifted and generous people. CPL is dynamic in those who are HERE now. If it were to never attract one more person through its doors, it would already be an extraordinary success. The dedication to Truth and to living life in Integrity and Love; the commitment to Spiritual Growth; the willingness to create community through open and honest and often difficult communication; the desire to see CPL based on a foundation of prosperity … all of these values seemed to emerge effortlessly from the groups who worked together for almost two full days. The leadership of the Board Members and Staff ministers as well as our facilitator, Bob Sloane, has been outstanding in every way. As a congregation we owe these people a debt of gratitude for leading this “Spiritual Genome Project” to its final and touching conclusion.
The fruit of the work done this weekend will be felt VERY powerfully in the weeks and months to come. There is no turning back, no faltering in our movement forward … in short … no retreat!
I’m going to go home and book next years immediately! This has been one of the most satisfying and exhausting experiences of my ministerial leadership. This has been one of those experiences that defines who I am as the community leader for the Centre and who we are as a community. I’m so excited about the work we have done here. As I prepare for our last morning together … it is about 5AM right now and I’m thinking that were I at home right now I’d be sitting in the window seat and working on my lesson. I’d be drinking Starbucks and waiting for the call from my prayer partner. So stepping away form the normal is what it is all about; adjusting my perspective; getting out of the routine, and just simply looking at the world from a mountain top.
What have I discovered? I’m surrounded by extraordinarily gifted and generous people. CPL is dynamic in those who are HERE now. If it were to never attract one more person through its doors, it would already be an extraordinary success. The dedication to Truth and to living life in Integrity and Love; the commitment to Spiritual Growth; the willingness to create community through open and honest and often difficult communication; the desire to see CPL based on a foundation of prosperity … all of these values seemed to emerge effortlessly from the groups who worked together for almost two full days. The leadership of the Board Members and Staff ministers as well as our facilitator, Bob Sloane, has been outstanding in every way. As a congregation we owe these people a debt of gratitude for leading this “Spiritual Genome Project” to its final and touching conclusion.
The fruit of the work done this weekend will be felt VERY powerfully in the weeks and months to come. There is no turning back, no faltering in our movement forward … in short … no retreat!
posted by Rev-T at 11:40 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home