Today is a day of re-entry for me. Yesterday, my traveling companions and I rose early to take the ferry away from Whidbey Island, immersing ourselves almost immediately in the gridlock of Seattle rush hour and what is a closer reality of our daily lives. Cars speeding up, then halting, sirens blaring, lights flashing, we were headed back into a life that had become invisible to us for a few days. This is the true nature of retreat…..pulling away from your normal life so you can see it more fully, with greater understanding and hopefully, compassion. Unfortunately over the last several years we have thrown that word…retreat...around to mean many things but rarely what it truly is. In the corporate, educational and church world we often call day, or even week long meetings ‘retreats’. Don’t be fooled. It is not true.
Retreats are experiences that cause you to blink at speed when you come back into the world. Retreats are experiences that make you realize that,while eating a re-entry lunch, that you are taking twice as long as others, that your food seems to taste better that theirs. Retreats are experiences that cause you to question, to find answers, to lower your heart rate and increase your compassion, to breathe deeply and to simply stare into the middle distance with great intention. Retreats allow you to see the world with sacred eyes and to find your own inner rhythm once again. Retreats allow you to savor the world you re-enter as the extraordinary place it is….taking nothing for granted for awhile.
And so today, I will head out into the world knowing that I have been blessed to have been given a gift of time, of prayer, of companionship, of communion…..a retreat. In our culture it is easy to think of the retreat experience as nonproductive time, as ‘fluff’. That also is not true.
As people of faith, we have many models for taking time away from the regular patterns of our daily lives. "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness….As he walked by the Sea of Galilee….That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea…..Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself….."Sit here while I go over there and pray"….Retreat.
Wherever you are today, I pray that you will have at least a few moments of retreat. In fact, I offer the next few moments to you. Close your eyes, place your feet firmly on the ground,breathe deeply,listen, really listen to your own heartbeat. Offer yourself these moments to rest in Spirit…through your breath, your presence, your intention, your communion. The world will wait….I promise.