Inspirations from a Women's Retreat

I am back from the God's Spa women's retreat at Luther Springs, but still not back to "regular life."  I gave myself the gift of a day off.  I knew that I'd need time to decompress, plus I have grades due today for some of my online classes.

I've done laundry and made a casserole for a week's worth of lunches.  I baked sweet potatoes too.  I'm in need of some vegetarian food, after the riotous living of the week-end.

You may think of camp or retreat and assume the food would be sparse.  No, it's not that kind of retreat center.

It was a rainy, rainy week-end, which was cozy in a way.  It also led me to feel a bit fretful about leaving, since we had miles and miles of dirt road before getting to paved road.  Happily, it was O.K.

For more about the particulars of the retreat, see this post on my theology blog.  For this post here, let me record some inspirations that came to me during this retreat.

 I did a group guided meditation.  I hadn't really thought about going, but we were practicing a song on the back porch, and the rest of the group was going, so I went too.  I was able to do the meditation without falling asleep, unlike the last time that I tried meditation, back in February.

We were taken through the meditation where we imagined floating in a Mediterranean sea.  We saw a figure on the beach--since it was a Christian retreat, that figure turned out to be Jesus.  We had a conversation.

In my meditation, Jesus and I talked about writing and focused on poetry.  We talked about Luisa Igloria's Buddha poems and what an inspiration they had been.  Jesus asked why I hadn't compiled all my poems about him into one volume.  Today I would have my answer.  I don't have enough.

And thus, I have a fun project.  I'm going to write one of my Jesus in the world poems at the rate of one per week (for an example of this kind of poem of mine, see this blog post).  I also hope to write another poem each week too.

What other insights came to me?

I'm going to start carrying a journal with me.  I want to track my eating.  I want to make a sketch each day.  I want to keep daily gratitude lists.  I want to capture my various inspirations.

I also overheard a snippet, which I will record here.  An older woman eating a banana said, "I haven't eaten a banana since Ralph died."  It's one of those sentences that says so much, even as it seems banal.