Gospel of Peace
Week #3
I recently attended a Courage and Renewal Retreat. Paradoxically, I drove toward the busyness of D.C. on a Friday afternoon, seeking an experience of silence and introspection. A stress-inducing hour in commuter traffic, was followed by country roads that soon narrowed to a single lane.
I started to breathe.
However, upon arrival at the lodge, I learned that we were not going to be able to check-in as planned. The facility’s sprinkler system had somehow become activated in the hallway that had been reserved for our group. Some retreat staff were frantically vacuuming up enormous amounts of water that had cascaded into the hallway just hours beforehand, while others were frantically preparing different rooms for us. Thus, I found myself in a roomful of strangers who had begun to gather in a meeting room that was rapidly filling with luggage and awkward chitchat, while I was beginning to fill with the feeling that I had made a terrible mistake.
I had not.
Somehow, our rooms were made available to us just in time for the program to get started on schedule. The opening activity had each person choosing from a collection of photographs, the one picture we felt most drawn toward. I initially chose a picture of lightning, assuming we would have to share about it and figuring it would be easy to come up with something to say. But then a different picture caught my eye. The backlit silhouette of a person, standing in the midst of shallow water, reflecting a beautiful sunset. We did end up sharing about our pictures, one-on-one, with three different people. At first, the only thing I could think of to say was that I was drawn to the two photography techniques—backlit figures and the sky-water reflection. However, the third woman I spoke to had chosen a picture of a sunrise, saying it spoke to her of new beginnings. Her words guided me to the underlying reason for my own choice. My sunset picture symbolized rest.
Which is what I did for the remainder of the weekend. We were told that all sharing was by invitation rather than demand. Which gave me permission to settle into the quiet listening and contemplation my soul had been longing for.
The weekend left me determined to lean into more peaceful, restful living.
Just as it has left me passionate about sharing this healing, life-giving experience with others.
Consider these quotes from Parker Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness
“The soul wants to keep us rooted in the ground of our own being, resisting the tendency of other faculties, like the intellect and ego, to uproot us from who we are.”
The soul wants to keep us connected to the community in which we find life, for it understands that relationship are necessary if we are to thrive.”
“The soul wants to tell us the truth about ourselves, our world, and the relation between the two, whether that truth is easy or hard to hear.”
“The soul wants to give us life and wants us to pass that gift along, to become life-givers in a world that deals too much death”
Discussion Questions
Opening:
If you feel led, read aloud a word or phrase that caught your attention in the quotes above.
Core Question #1:
Does anything stand out to you in the quotes that you would like to share?
Core Question #2:
Excerpt from the introduction to Parker Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness:
There was a time when farmers on the Great Plains, at the first sign of a blizzard, would run a rope from the back door out to the barn. They all knew stories of people who had wandered off and been frozen to death, having lost sight of home in a whiteout while still in their own backyards.
Today we live in a blizzard of another sort. It swirls around us as economic injustice, ecological ruin, physical and spiritual violence, and their inevitable outcome, war. It swirls within us as fear and frenzy, greed and deceit, and indifference to the suffering of others. We all know stories of people who have wandered off into this madness and been separated from their own souls, losing their moral bearings and even their mortal lives: they make headlines because they take so many innocents down with them…
This book is about tying a rope from the back door out to the barn so that we can find our way home again. When we catch sight of the soul, we can survive the blizzard without losing our hope or our way. When we catch sight of the soul, we can become healers in a wounded world…”
What is your rope in the storm? What relationships, practices, etc. anchor you in the midst of the blizzard swirling around you?
Core Question #3:
Blizzard imagery is an apt metaphor for the modern American life. Snow is a good and beautiful thing but can become dangerous when there is too much of it. Wind is an important component of life on planet Earth, but it can become destructive when it blows too hard. Combined—too many good things and inhumanly busy schedules—snow and wind can create deadly conditions.
In what ways do we see too much of a good thing causing problems in peoples’ lives? In what ways are the winds of your life blowing too hard and fast?
Core Question #4:
God can give us peace in the storms of life that we cannot avoid. But He can also help us to calm the storms that are under our control.
What stormy conditions are truly unavoidable in your life right now? What stormy conditions are you allowing? Why?
Conclusion:
Pray the Serenity Prayer as a group:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”