First Annual Liberation Church Retreat

Ocean City. Two houses. 28 people. Plenty of soak your clothes to the bone rain, board games, ice breakers, name games, shared meals, conversations, prayer groups, community theater exercises, one-on-ones, affirmations, cards, large group conversations about gossip and meditation, conversations about desires for guidance and community coupled with a lack of willingness to commit, follow through and to lead, worship inside the house that stopped people walking by outside.

To be honest I came home exhausted and I was ready to leave Saturday night. Not that I wasn't having a good time. I laughed my ass off. I couldn't walk two feet without getting a hug (this is very comfortable for me and one of my love languages). I got to spend time with amazing people - some who I knew pretty well and some I didn't and I heard some personal stories of such sadness and bravery, joy, and perseverance. Some of the stories I heard resonated with such a strong sense of Self and awareness of God presence in the midst of struggle it kind of knocked me over. I also was a little late to get the memo that some of us are attending a radically inclusive church because we've been radically excluded. And we had a discussion about how "hurt people hurt people" and how that looks in churches whether we're trying to be a safe place or not, including our own.

Experiencing this on the heels of the Seeking + Listening retreat the weekend before was heavy for me. No one asked me to carry their stories around, but I did for a few days. Regardless of where I was the weekend before I also require down time and quiet that was in short supply. And I lack the gumption that Darrell has to go to the beach by himself at 4 a.m. in the morning on Sunday to get it.

I brought my white ass, contemplative, self-obsessed, melancholy self to church on Sunday and read The Journey by Mary Oliver for the welcome. Some people said thank you, other people said "you o.k.?" And then we sang like crazy in an amoeba shape, gathered in across the pews , holding hands, singing "JESUS!, You are! The Center. of my Jo o oy!" over and over again and damn, that was good. "We belong to you, we belong to you, we belong to you." May we live that.

Here's what I'm sitting with now about 10 days or so away from the weekend. The retreat worked. I feel closer to the people I worship with and a little unsteady, awkward in myself, challenged, questioned. Got another heavy dose of "it's not about me." And an invitation to think about my life and lives of those around me. What are my needs, what are the needs of others? How do I fit? How am I fed? How do I serve? How will I serve?

And I feel a strong sense of Love and gratitude. I sat at church last night after a kick ass bible study discussion about Acts 16:16-40 (Paul and Silas singing in jail until the earth shook) sitting alone in the pews listening to choir rehearsal, soaking it in and laughing along with the joking. I sang to myself and recorded a few minutes of their singing so I can take it with me on my pilgrimage. I will miss our worship and individual and collective voices.

Sonny, invited me to close the rehearsal with prayer so I joined the choir circle and started with "Dear God, I love these men and women..." When we broke the circle David looked at me and said "And we love you, too." Got a text from Marlon at 7:40 this morning. "I love you big much."

I'm terrified of being suffocated, sucked dry and yet that is so different than being emptied in order to be filled. Lord, I am experiencing both, not always without anxiety, but I am being challenged, welcomed, emptied, and filled. It is so different that being Loved.

(Here's the Mary Oliver poem I read before Communion at the retreat with . The pictures on this post were taken at the ocean just before worship.)

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Something has happened
to the bread
and the wine.

[Something has happened to us.]

They have been blessed.

[We have been blessed.]
What now?

The body leans forward

to receive the gift
from [each other's hands],
then the chalice.

They are something else now
from what they were
before this began.

[We are something else now from what we were before this began.]

[We] want
to see Jesus,
maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man

and clearly
someone else
besides.

On the hard days
[We] ask [ourselves]
if [we] ever will.

Also there are times
[our] body whispers to [us]
that [we] have.

-Mary Oliver