It's funny how I start sessions with one mental posture and get yanked around so quickly...
I was quite pleased to come back here and join with my new-found friends face-to-face. But this quickly changed. In part I'm sure this was because people were just being too loud, although the volume made perfect sense since so many of us care so much for each other and people were excited to see each other. And my introversion came roaring to the surface and I felt I was close to saying things that I would regret later. (I'd be forgiven, of course, but that's not the point.)
And then I remembered that lunch that day had been two candy bars and three cups of coffee. And being frazzled picking up three classmates at the Airport. Didn't help. Nope.
Our post-dinner session started with "Snapshots," which are a person-by-person description of where we've been emotionally, spiritually, etc. since the last Residency. Your Snapshot started with the words: "Picture me..." People engaged in (what seemed to me to be) drawn-out stories of recent events which didn't match up well with the intent of the exercise. But that's me. Anyway, when it came my turn, I had had a chance to think up and discard several optional "Picture me's" and settled on an insight that had just occurred to me. I said "Picture me feeling that I am being helpful to my Monthly Meeting. Not thinking that. Not knowing that. But feeling that." Which is true. And while the first two statements are true and okay by me, the third one -- the "feeling" one -- does not make me feel good at all. Not sure I can explain or understand why. Yet... But it felt like a good piece of Me with which to begin the Residency.
Several insights from our sessions today -- the first full day of the Residency:
A lot more God talk -- which is reasonable since the overarching theme of this Residency is Prayer. We were supposed to engage in an Intercessory Prayer and then break into four-person groups to discuss how it felt, etc. When it came my time to describe what happened to me, I described myself as feeling stuck at the Starting Line of Prayer. That I had this cute little piece of logic with which I could undermine any effort at determining that Prayer actually made a difference.
I could say to myself, "When I pray, I am letting go of something. Distancing myself from an issue. Backing off. So if things change -- for the better, usually -- I can say to myself that of course things worked out. It's because I got some distance from the issue and gained objectivity as well, which allowed me to see a path to make things better. God wasn't necessary for this to happen."
But an alternative description of what took place occurred to me -- with the help of my three fellow participants. And that is that the process of backing away, gaining some objectivity, gaining a new way of seeing was a gift of God.
I had a revelation about my "List of Tears" that came out of the blue: I realized that the events listed in that list had left me disillusioned and disappointed. BUT I realized that I had the right to be angry. Probably at every event on the list -- but I started with the congregation at The Chapel of the Ascension. Why were they so disengaged from what the Minister had to say? Why didn't they recognize the man's sincerity and interest in their welfare? Why didn't his words change them? What was it that they would need to hear to make a change? Were they at the Chapel simply because it was convenient and their friends were there?
Why was nobody available to help me?
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