Sunday

sometimes we don’t need words …

What Can I Give Back to God for the Blessings He’s poured out on us? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation – a toast to God!

Psalm 116

Selah … so this past Sunday amidst all the mayhem, I think I worked out what is so cool, fun and special about Selah …  it’s become a place where God takes ordinary things – drums; twister; balloons; pizza; ice cream; dancing; worship; community – and makes it holy — a place where weekly, Jesus shows up and turns water into wine.

I was asked….so here I am

Hey everyone.  It’s Natsprat.  Yeah that’s right, I’m an author now.

Sal asked me to write a tidbit about the retreat,  so here I go. . .

Things I went with:
~Why? because we’re on retreat
~And that, my friends ,is how you save a life.
~I’m done with my research paper and I have nothing more to worry about so…I can relax and enjoy myself.
~and…the feeling that this was gonna be a good one.

Things I came back with:
~Pumpkin Field Adventure.
~Are we ever, really, not on retreat?
~Sally’s "Opsie-daisy" moments
~The true meaning of "If I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world"

It was a great weekend. Plus, I got to spend the last piece of fall break with a great friend who’s far away. I hope you all had the same, peaceful experience I did.

~Natalie-Spratalie is out.

What is the church?

  So today I was reminded what the church really is.  The church is people.  The church isn’t a building – it’s not even beautiful stained glass windows and wooden pews.  No, the church is people.  People who care.  People who decide to drop by and dance in your living room.  People who make you cards.  The church is people who are present even when you don’t  answer your phone.    The church is people who remember and come over anyway bringing things to cheer and comfort.  The church is people who believe when you can’t.  The church is people who love.   

And today I was loved by my church, by two friends.    Today I was reminded of the blessing that the church, no matter how young the church is, has to offer.   Today I was reminded of what who the church really is.

The Grail and the Fray.

Scurrying about Friday, I got stuck in the Drive-thru line, at Walgreens. I was tapping my fingers, when my favorite little words start ringing ("if I just lay here…..") as my phone starts vibrating. 

It’s Andrea.

I confess, that my first thoughts were, "She’s lost the what to bring list for the weekend," or "She doesn’t know what time to be at church."  But instead, I get "Sally, can I tell you something weird.  You know last night at the concert, when the band had stopped playing, and they stopped singing, and it was just the crowd repeating the chorus of  How to Save a Life.  And the band just stood there, listening to us.  Well, I was thinking, it was really cool with all those different voices singing the same song.   It wasn’t even that everybody was in tune, but we were singing the same words.  And I was thinking that that’s how life should be.   We all should be singing together.  It may sound different, but it’s the same song.  There was something very cool, very holy about that moment.  Like that is the way God intended life to be."

and maybe in recognizing God’s dream for this world, for us in this world .. maybe we’re that bit closer to living it.

Sally

More from the Diocesan Retreat

What I learned:

you don’t have  to know everything to be a spiritual friend.

you just have to be able to listen.

god is always speaking, you just have to know how to listen and what to listen for.

What I’m walking away with:

a closer relationship with god.

another important encounter with him.[saturday night}

the ability to serve others spiritually [washing feet]

a relaxing weekend, a great retreat.

fun memories of friends…and canoeing.

-Mackenzie.

Other tidbits from last weekend

Apparently there were other retreats happening last weekend aside from the one in Liberty, TN.

Too bad I missed the retreat…..

But I believe I did retreat this weekend. With Elvis!!! We (my family) went to Graceland, and Sun Studio, where Elvis sang his first recording! And I touched the actual microphone that Elvis sang into!!!!! Dude, I totally found the Holy Grail of Rock ‘n’ Roll! And, I walked the whole Mississippi River! (All right, it was a 1/2 mile long scale, but it was close enough!) Awesomeness!

~Bryn

P.S. I found God in a place where anyone would least expect it: Math class. We were taking notes and I was getting the tiniest bit frustrated because I did not understand it. The teacher had written a word in [brackets], and I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day!

                     

Soooo what about this retreat?

this retreat reminded me of how good god was.

he reminded me that people love me for who i am.

not who i try to be.

he reminded me that even though im mad at him, im still worth it.

he blessed me with a weekend full of new friends, love, and hope that death isnt the end of the story.

-Andrea

Coming home

So Sally and I are at the church today.  We were pulling some things out for our retreat, and my mother showed up.  She was trading cars with me, so I could have the van for the retreat.

Mom asked Sally, "You ready to take these kids away."

I immediately thought, are we going away, or are we coming home?

And my mother pointed out that perhaps it’s both.  Perhaps we are going away, so that we can come home.

As I think about it, I remember the first time I went to church when I was in college.  I had stayed on campus three weekends in a row, and didn’t go to church.  Didn’t really want to go.  I was very happy to be able to make the choice myself.  Mom was nagging over me to go, it was 100% my decision, and noone would have to know the difference.  So, for two weeks, I didn’t go to church.

On the third week, I woke up very early on Sunday morning.  For some reason, I couldn’t get back to sleep.  So, I eventually got out of bed, pulled out a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, and decided to just take a walk.  I ended up walking (not really by choice, but more by chance) to the frond doors of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.  I was a regular attendee after that.

I had been called home.  God didn’t necessarily call me home back to church, he called me home back to HIM. 

As we pack for our retreats (whether it is the diocesan retreat,  a retreat from schooll or my own retreat with the commission on ministry), think about that.  Use this time away, this break, this pause, this (dare I say it) SELAH, to come home.

Welcome home Pilgrims.

                                                                                                                                                        —David

Favorites

My personal favorites from Selah this evening:

God is like a kit kat …  He gave me a break this week.  It was nice.    -Joey

God is like Dr. McDreamy (gotta love anything that has to do with McDreamy and Grey’s Anatomy)… He kept showing up and stepping in and fixing things.   -Mackenzie

God is like a Home Run… We keep running from base to base but God’s the home run. – Sean.

God is like a rocking chair on a big Southern porch…  a place to just sit and be and look and listen   

But the best moment … how we made God smile!!!!

Good Ol’ St. Francis

So it was a zoo today.  Not that that is that abnormal for a Sunday at St. Paul’s but today we did add a variety of dogs, cats, turkeys, parrots, little pony’s, rabbits and lizard-type-creatures.   

As only Cindy could, she summed up the day like this:

I stepped in a giant pile of poop. My shoe stinks. My car stinks. I imagine that a small piece of Publix stinks. But seeing all the animals was cool.

Probably a fairly good assessment of today.   But it also sounded a little like life on other days just minus the four-legged, two winged, gobbling, carrot-eating, crawling friends. 

So maybe life is a little like an Animal Blessing?