Kirkepiscatoid: Next week: A retreat for one

Next week: A retreat for one

Yep, you heard it here first. Next week, when I have some time off, I'm taking one of those days off to create a retreat for myself.

I visited with Wallace a little bit today about my "agenda" for it, and he gave me some ideas. Since I have been kind of goofing around in the Psalms a little, his suggestion was to spend the whole day revising, revamping and retooling a single psalm--in as many ways and forms as I like.

He told me, "You can use any psalm you want--as long as it is a joyful one of praise."

I immediately gave him the "You have got to be shittin' me" look, and he said, "Hey, hear me out, now. You're very good at taking apart the mournful, lamenting kinds of psalms. Part of being a disciplined student of your faith is working your "weak side"--and experiencing the joy and delight of your faith is definitely your weak side."

I chose Psalm 118. I have not chosen the day for this adventure, but will keep you all posted!

4 comments:

Fran said... July 18, 2008 at 6:57:00 AM CDT: Well you have my prayers for what you need your retreat to be - praise be to God!

I am looking forward to hearing about how this works out for you.

Blessings in abundance to you!
Kirkepiscatoid said... July 18, 2008 at 7:16:00 AM CDT: Well, Fran, it was an interesting conversation that led to this. I often take a week off but "don't go anywhere"--I call it "practicing for my retirement" and use the time to do things around my little "hobby ranch". One of the things that the vicar has sort of impressed upon me over the last couple years is that I seem to thrive best spiritually when I "tithe my time"; i.e., carve out physical time for prayer and study, etc.

His suggestion was, "Carve out just ONE day out of those 7 days to just turn the cell phone off, pull out of the world and connect with God. Do things differently all the way around that day, starting with the moment you wake up."

That sounded a bit "agendaless" to me and a little too "open" so he came up with the idea of using a psalm as the lynchpin of the day.

We discussed the fact that I am a person who tends to only let joy and delight touch me only fleetingly--probably because all the Teutonic genes in my gene pool that say "life is hard and it sucks and you just buck up and deal with it." Being too happy tempts the fates, you know.

So this will be a little bit like being asked to dribble, pass, and shoot with my off-hand all day. But I'm up for the challenge and it will be nice to know that your prayers are out there for me to appreciate!
Ruth Hull Chatlien said... July 18, 2008 at 9:38:00 AM CDT: That sounds like an interesting exercise to go through. I wonder if spending time outside our comfort zones, working in the areas we normally avoid, would make us more empathetic to people who differ from us. (I'm not implying that you aren't empathetic--just following a tangent that occured to me.)
Kirkepiscatoid said... July 18, 2008 at 11:19:00 AM CDT: Ruth, it very well could. I also think there's a built in level of "personal safety zone" in doing this alone. We tend to avoid the things that don't "come easy" to us more in groups than alone for fear of embarrassment.

Take contemplative prayer. Our church had a group that met for centering prayer activities every Wednesday. When I was asked to join it, I got the biggest "deer in the headlights" look you've ever seen. I am pretty much on the edge of adult ADHD. Sitting still and quiet in a group seemed scary as hell to me.

However, I sort of figured out through the back door and with a little coaching from my vicar that it wasn't that I could or could not "do" it; it was that in a group I had expectations of their expectations for me. Alone, released from those expectations, I CAN be still and quiet for some period of time...just maybe not as long as the group would expect!