Monday, April 21, 2008

Dearest God,

The sweet smell of incense still lingers in the air. Thoughts of the retreat remain with us. Insights, revelation, presence, hope, truth, joy still exist.

Memories, sweet memories of your closeness, those moments of peace continue to feed the soul. Twenty one women still carrying around the faith they picked up during the retreat weekend. What more could one ask?

How difficult it was to write the retreat; yet, your spirit came off the pages. Women, ready, hungry for your spirit opened themselves to the depths of faith and were not disappointed. The mystery of invisibility becoming visible.

I saw the light of Christ beaming on each face. I saw it again today when I listened to retreatants talk about the weekend. With such sharing there could be a revolution of faith, a love that could take over the world.

A long time ago I came to the awareness that retreat is not just about getting together for a good time. It is not just about being in a small group. It is not just about spiritual exercises. It's not even about pickles (oh, how we do love those dill pickles with cream cheese and dried beef). It's not about singing or praying or walking in silence. It's not about a girls' school becoming a retreat center. It is about your presence, your presence only and willing spirits and hearts. The combination together sets the earth on a collision course where love will collide with faith melding the two together like nothing else can.

Women walk away changed in some part of their life. They carry the change home to their families. They walk in hope. They are courageous, willing to risk something of themselves. They know what they carry is of great value. They are not willing to let it go; in fact sometimes they let it run rampant within them. This causes a chain reaction of love-trust-faith-spirit-mystery-transcendence. It all returns to love, pure love, yours.

We carry
your spirit.
You give us
your spirit.
You allow us
to carry
your spirit.
We carry it
to one another.
We stop along
our life's journey
to hand over
some of that spirit
to someone else
hungry, thirsty
for something more.
We are water carriers;
we carry living water.
We carry spiritual food,
food that feeds
a hungry spirit,
water that nourishes,
quenches the thirst.
We carry
your spirit
to one another.
Retreatants,
carriers of your
spirit.

Loving you always, Andrea