Soon I will pack up my laptop and printer and books and papers and head home after these writing retreat days. Such a productive time this has been. I don't have a completed draft first of the current chapter yet, but I am almost there and have a sense of how to complete it. A good feeling!However, there is shadow and light in everything.
I look forward to reuniting with my husband, being in our home once again, and enjoying the planned activities of the next few days. We will entertain two small groups, one Thursday afternoon and another Sunday evening. We have tickets to a play Friday, and we will also attend the middle school play at our grandson's school. (He is the sound guy for the play.) I will visit my Dad one afternoon and, of course, there is church on Sunday. And I have a lengthy To Do list awaiting my return.
All good, but what happens to the retreat? Will I be able to carve out any time to write?
The good news is that I return newly inspired and, like Joe Biden, have momentum. I feel refreshed and restored and committed--once again--to this long process of writing a spiritual memoir, but I will no longer be on a retreat.
Life outside of retreat time requires more juggling, more choices, more this and that, more appointments and interactions, more opportunities and possibilities, more requirements and responsibilities. More.
None of that is bad, I hasten to add, but life back home is not a writing retreat. My ongoing dilemma, as part of living a full life, is to set aside time, not just to write, but to return to stillness and listen for the voice of God. That seems easier when I am on a retreat. The challenge is to bring that stillness, that openness, that spaciousness into each day no matter where I am and what I am doing.
My word for the year is "fullness, " as I have noted here. Fullness is not the same as busyness, but how easy it is to fall into that trap and to think that the more I do, the richer my life will be. Instead, I am trying to embrace the "fullness of the partial." (Yearnings, Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life by Rabbi Irwin Kula, p 255) Fullness does not mean everything. Fullness does not mean always saying "yes," but it also doesn't mean always saying "no." Sometimes fullness means setting aside something, in order to make room for something else or to move in a different direction, at least for a few blocks. Fullness means being aware of how we live and move in the world and how we are living God's hope for us.
I will have writing time once I am home. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but I will create that time. I will not lose what I have gained these past days, but, instead, these retreat days will continue to live in me in ways I don't yet know.
It matters supremely to God that you
live the fullness of who you are.
At Sea With God
Margaret Silf, p. 37
An Invitation
How are you living the fullness of who you are? I would love to know.
This post is so helpful to me. Remembering to say yes to things that will give me momentum. For me that requires scheduling time for writing. It means starting my day with journaling and devlotions, making time for that, because the days are sure full and it's easy to let other things creep into that time. It's a balancing act of saying yes and saying no.
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