Holden Village

Retreat: (1) an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable, (2) a place of privacy or safety, (3) a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study or instruction under a director

All three of these definitions of the word retreat are appropriate explanations of what I did while on vacation at Holden Village in Washington. In previous posts I've alluded to both personal and professional issues/anxieties I had been experiencing before vacation, which, now that I've returned, have not been completely resolved. I have to admit that some of the appeal of vacation was the opportunity to retreat: withdraw from difficulties. The beauty of the time spent at Holden Village, a place where I had no access to the phone or the internet, meant that it was also a retreat: a place of privacy and safety. It might have been the first time since I started my call when I felt that, for an extended period of time, I was genuinely relaxed and allowed the freedom of not even thinking about the congregation. (There were of course times I thought about it a little when people asked what I did and I talked about being a pastor, but I didn't have to WORRY or plan.) It was also a time of retreat: prayer, meditation, study, and instruction. I did a lot of reading, some for fun and some related to faith and leadership. I learned how to weave on a loom. I did a lot of prayer/meditation/worship. And I was involved in discussions about living learning communities. I enjoyed my experience at Holden so much, that I didn't want to return to NJ. But I obviously did return, and now I'm trying to adjust to post-vacation work and life, while still reflecting and appreciating the blessing that Holden Village has been (and hopefully will be) in my life.

Got Mountains?

Awed. Refreshed. Excited. Renewed. Blessed.

These are just some of the things I felt on my two-week vacation to Seattle and Holden Village. My appreciations of both city and "the outdoors" were satisfied by these two very different, but both very awesome places.

Seattle adventures included Pike Place Market, the art museum, the library, the Space Needle, the Experience Music Project, the Fremont Troll, Theo Chocolate Factory, Jimi Hendrix's grave, REI superstore, Luther's Table, a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island, Sunday morning worship at Our Savior Lutheran Church and Sunday evening compline at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral.

Holden adventures included getting there (car, boat, and bus!), relaxing, eating, meeting people, reading, relaxing, worship, hiking, weaving, viewing the Royal Wedding, napping, conversation, ice cream, and more relaxing.

This is my brief review for now, but there will be more to come. In the meantime, check out http://thirtybefore.wordpress.com to read Mandy's review and see more pictures.

April showers

I have come to the end of another busy week, but it was one that has left me feeling much less frazzled and much more positive than I have after some other weeks this month. I can't believe we're almost in May already, but I'm pretty thankful for it, to be truthful. A good portion of the end of March through April was pretty crappy, and I'm ready to move on. I have a new car that's working great so far (and getting great gas mileage, woohoo!), I had a nice visit from my parents and I will see them again soon, we're in the season of Easter and focusing on resurrection, I accomplished quite a bit this week, and I'm only 3 days away from the start of my vacation, and one week from Holden Village! I am now in the last few days of working to make sure everything that needs to be done before I leave gets done, both for work, and for my trip. I was able to make a lot of reservations/plans for the trip this week and I'm feeling much better about it (I was getting pretty nervous last week). Now I think I will spend the rest of my evening catching up on some TV shows and perusing my Seattle guidebook.

New Life

Well I made it through my first Holy Week as a pastor. It was tiring and a little stressful at times, but there were also moments, usually during worship, where I was still able to focus on the meaning of the days. My parents were here for a long weekend and though I was working for a lot of it, I was grateful for some family time to distract me.
In my sermon(s) on Sunday, I asked the people where they are seeing resurrection and new life in their lives and in the world and others around them. Often, the words that God gives me are ones I need to hear probably just as much as the people I preach to. So I am trying to look for new life as well. Even though I've had uncomfortable moments and frustrations with some people lately, I've also noticed there are people who have been making extra efforts at being positive and supportive. These are people showing me new life. Today I was able to take a day off to recover from all the extra work of last week, and it was a great day. I treated myself to breakfast out, did a little shopping, stopped for a quick visit with a friend and did plenty of relaxing. I saw new life today. I am hoping this day refreshed me enough to work hard the rest of this week, to get ready for vacation next week!
Where do you see new life?

Letting it out

My life has been a rollercoaster these last few weeks, and it has felt like one LONG, continuous, tiring ride that has had a lot more scary and upsetting moments than fun moments. I don't mean to be a downer, I just want to be honest. And I hope that putting some of my feelings out here will be cathartic and helpful. Personally, my car saga has just been exhausting and ridiculous (it's almost funny how many loaner cars I've gone through), but I'm in the home stretch. I put a deposit down on a new car, one that was coming in but not on the lot yet, so now I'm just waiting for it to get here so that I can actually hopefully feel some excitement. Between the car payments I will now have and the amount of taxes I owe that I was not expecting, I have had to adjust my financial plan. But crap happens, and I will just make some changes and deal. I recognize that I could be in a far worse financial position. I am so grateful that I have a steady income. I have also had a lot of emotionally draining struggles within my congregation, some that have been building for a while and I think it all just came to a head within the last week or so. It's been really hard. But I think I'm at least learning from all of it. And I have some goals and things to focus on moving ahead. And Easter will be here soon! :) And then vacation soon after that! ;) I've also seen and felt God's presence during some of these really difficult times... in positive comments and support, in friends, in meals shared with others, in Scripture and prayer, and through running. :) And any of your thoughts and prayers are much appreciated.

The Lazy Song

Today I don't feel like doing anything. I just want to lay in my bed. Don't feel like pickin' up the phone, so leave a message at the tone. Cause today I don't feel like doing anything, nothing at all. (Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song)

Bruno Mars is one of my favorite newer musicians. I've liked almost every single he's come out with, and his latest single is fun and probably a little tongue-in-cheek. And today, it has been my theme song. I think everyone has days every now and then when they just want to be lazy, myself included. But today especially I really felt like doing nothing. In spite of my lack of motivation, I did get some work done today, but it wasn't easy. I just felt SO. TIRED. I think all the driving of the last couple days caught up to me. And I'm pretty sure I was also recovering (emotionally) from the car accident I had yesterday. Yeah. Thankfully, I am fine physically. And I didn't cause any damage to the car I hit (because it was a van). But I did do a decent amount of damage to the front of my car (hood, bumper, headlight). It was so stupid, I wasn't doing anything wrong, I just couldn't get stopped fast enough. It really was just an accident. I took my car in today and will hear back in the next day or so about the prognosis. I guess because it's old there's a possibility it might have to be totaled, but I'm really hoping that's not the case. I think she still has some life left in her! In the meantime, I'm driving a rental. I have a Jeep Patriot for now (because the options were pretty limited), which I have to admit is a pretty sweet vehicle, but I will probably end up trading it for something smaller with better gas mileage. So now I'm gonna try to relax, get to bed early, and hopefully feel better tomorrow.

A Weekend Away

In January I started thinking ahead over the year to try to plan out my vacation time. I had some vacation time already planned for May and I wanted to spread out my Sundays off through the year if possible. I decided with the busy seasons of Lent and Easter I wanted to take a weekend off before May, around this late winter/early spring time. Lutherlyn, the camp I attended as a kid and worked at as a counselor, has several off-season retreats, and at least a few of them are related to crafty things and often attended by my friend Mandy and her mom. I found out that they were having a "Mystery Quilting Retreat" the last weekend of March, and confirmed that Mandy would be attending, and decided to sign up and use it for a Sunday off. I decided to make it a long weekend, and I headed home to my parents' on Thursday, and then made my way to Lutherlyn Friday evening. Unfortunately Mandy had caught the flu and spent all day Friday in bed. She was feeling better by Saturday though, so luckily it was only a 24-hour thing (as of this posting, I am still feeling ok, and hoping I avoided catching it!) and we were still able to spend some time together, even though she wasn't feeling 100%. Her mom and I each worked on the mystery quilt project, and Mandy worked a little each on a t-shirt quilt, some placemats, and a stuffed rocket (see below). The way the mystery quilt worked was that we received a list of how much fabric to get and how to make the first cuts, all before we got to the retreat. Then we received clues every so often, and you work one clue at a time and when you finish it you move on to the next clue, so that you don't know what the completed quilt will look like. And everyone can work at their own pace. Even though I waited until I was at the retreat to cut any of my fabric, I was still able to catch up to about where most of the women were. The first few clues involved a lot (a LOT) of tedious cutting, sewing, cutting, and squaring, all to make the small squares that will be put together to make the blocks. You can see a lot of these squares in the picture below. Out of 9 clues total, I only made it to clue #5, but because of all the prep work, I think most of us ended the weekend around the same place. I was able to complete one block, and put enough rows together to complete 7 more blocks when I put those rows together. Then I can move on to clue #6! My completed block is the last picture below. I wasn't expecting to complete a quilt in one weekend, so I still feel pretty satisfied with what I was able to do, and I look forward to continuing to work on my quilt. The weekend was a nice break from the normal, and a great time at a place I love with a good friend. It was also nice to see my parents for a few days, but the time definitely went too fast, so I am looking forward to them coming out to visit me for Easter.