Weekend Retreat

I spent Friday night into Saturday at the annual Officers' Retreat for my church.  As an Elder, for three years now I have traveled the almost-two-hour road to the Golden Inn in Avalon, New Jersey, to attend budget meetings, prayer circles, and devotions, not to mention "mandatory fun" in the hotel bar with my fellow Elders and Deacons.

The getaway offers a change of venue, a change of pace, and a change of volume (no little girl voices for 24 hours!).

This year, the overarching theme of our brief retreat was "Making Connections and Being Connected."  Our pastor, Bill, pointed out that the greatest gift God gives us is Christ in each of us.  And Christ is in us in order for us to reach out and touch others.  Bill said that is why it is so meaningfuless when people say, "I'm spiritual, but not religious."  We are not simply spirits.  We are bodies, and as Christians we are the Body of Christ.  At the end of one session, he challenged us to consider:  How can I be with people in intentional ways?

At "mandatory fun" that evening, I had the opportunity to chat with a number of different people, but I spent most of the evening in a deep, personal conversation with one person.  Mealtimes brought opportunities to talk with people I had either not spoken to in awhile, or had not talked with in meaningful ways before.  Before leaving to drive home, I walked down to the beach with two other women, where we walked and talked and collected shells and driftwood together.  The journey to and from New Jersey gave me time to talk about all kinds of topics with the two women carpooling with me.  What a wonderful opportunity to connect and BE with people in intentional ways!

Blogging, too, though not the same as face-to-face interactions, gives me opportunities for intentional connections with people.  Lately, I've been just a little down-hearted at the slow-down in blog traffic, and not hearing from some of the readers who used to comment often on my posts.  But the connections I continue to make by visiting new blogs, and by hearing from those who take the time to comment, and by continuing to participate in swaps (and even now an art journal round-robin!) are valuable in quality if not numerous in quantity. 

What am I doing this for, anyway?  An in-box with a certain quota of comments, too many for me to respond to individually by email or even fully process before my next post?  Nope.  I am doing this for exactly the results I am getting now:  an opportunity to share what is going on in my life, with an emphasis on my creative explorations and development (which gives me an opportunity to think about and process it for myself); building relationships with a handful of amazing and like-minded women in different countries; finding projects and swaps and courses and challenges to continue my growth as an artist and a crafter.

It was both fun and helpful to find the theme of the annual retreat relevant to my online pursuits and my current train of thought!