03 March 2015

#LetThereBeLight

^^^ The theme of this past weekend's Confirmation retreat

I hadn't gone on a Confirmation retreat since I had been allowed on my sister's - she was in 10th grade and I was in 8th - so I was more than a little nervous to embark on last weekend's retreat. Even though I was surrounded by a fantastic leadership team, I have a rather perpetual fear of unknown things, which carried over into my specific anxiety about the success of the retreat. But I went. And it was good. Crazy, exhausting, and sometimes frustrating... but still good.

Grace always surprises me. And I'm thankful for that. If I were to anticipate it - and therefore, in some manner, take it to be ordinary - it's very nature as an extraordinary gift would be missed. You put in your best effort and then hope for the grace to appear and make up for your deficiencies and answer the necessary questions. So yes, grace always surprises me, but I'm of the opinion that it is proper that grace surprise me. It's not like I'm "owed" grace or something. It's an unexpected present.

{I'm pretty sure the latter paragraph is composed of two redundant sections, both of which could adequately express my point, but I'm too tired to edit properly. Mea culpa.}

Anyway.

To be totally honest, most of my memory of retreat is a crazy blur. I got a migraine Friday night, so I spent that night barfing instead of sleeping, and my activity Saturday was so fueled by adrenaline that I couldn't fall asleep until about 4:30 am Sunday, in spite of me putting my physically exhausted body to bed at 2. But each one of the few moments I clearly remember were so obviously grace-filled that I want to share them with you, my friends. :)

In no particular order:

1. Our youth minister asked that I be his extra hands over the weekend rather than leading a small group of students in their sharing and discussions. I was happy to oblige. Punctuality and efficiency don't make good things happen of themselves, but I'm a firm believer in them being an excellent framework out of which good things have time and room to grow. In preparation for the weekend, I assembled a black half-inch binder containing paperwork, schedules, and lists... and upon arrival found that Matt had made one as well, the only difference being that his was white. It is such a grace to have a partner in organization who thinks the way you do!


2. A slice of humble pie is always fun. We had been told to plan some short presentation to introduce ourselves to the teens and I had elected to use a couple of photos that Andrea had taken of me last summer. One was a very dramatic headshot, in which I look very serious and glamorous. The other was a rather goofy headshot of me pulling my mouth into a grin. I was going to show them both, briefly showing the glam shot, but mostly focusing on the ridiculous one since that is the one that is more authentically me. Alas, technical difficulties occurred, we didn't use my headshots, and I introduced myself with my sister. That was totally fine and cool... and then my dramatic headshot appeared on the projector. And stayed there. For a long time. Finally it was replaced by other peoples' photos... only to return and remain, once again, lingering on the wall. My face. Enormous and dramatically arranged. It is such a grace to have an intensely embarrassing moment in front of 100+ people... occasions for humility can be the moments of vulnerability that allow people to connect with one another.


3. Last time I went on retreat (only a few months ago), the kitchen was great about accommodating my allergies... apart from one slip-up Saturday night that caused me to get pretty sick. Since it had been my own retreat, though, it didn't negatively affect anyone else's experience. I didn't want to risk that occurring when I was really needed on this Confirmation retreat, so I packed all of my own food. I made these quinoa and oat bars with sun butter and maple syrup. I ate one at every meal. The grace here is in the fact that these bars - a recipe I had not previously made or consumed - kept me full and functioning all weekend; I didn't get hungry, I didn't pass out, and I even liked them tolerably well.


4. Speaking of food, I have a pretty funny story to share. Friday night at dinner, I found myself at a table of junior guys. Somehow we ended up talking about fitness, weight lifting, muscle building, etc., and suddenly I found myself being given weight loss advice. They encouraged me to set concrete, small goals and that the feeling of reaching those goals would be the best feeling ever. I listened quite seriously to all they had to say on the subject, but I was definitely laughing on the inside at their earnest intensity in giving such advice to a female chaperone. There is so much grace in laughter and in recalling these funny moments!


5. I got to experience real weather. I know many people were bummed that we had such dreary weather, but it wasn't just boring dreary weather. It was really exciting weather. The wind was positively howling all weekend, the rain started Saturday, but never got really intense, and then on Sunday it snowed. I loved it! It was such an adventure and I never got cold, even though I didn't have a coat! There is a two-fold grace here in that 1) the buildings were well heated and 2) I was so busy that I never sat still long enough to get cold. 


6. Even though I wasn't able to really connect with any particular group of the juniors since I was the supervisory "extra brain" (also known as the "bad cop" in opposition to Matt's "good cop") on the leadership team, I was given the opportunity to really connect and bond with the senior leadership team since I directed the "Fix You" skit this year. It's an intensely emotional skit, immediately following a talk on sin & forgiveness and preceding the hour and a half of confession time. The preparation and rehearsals for the skit all take place outside of the normal retreat meetings so it requires a further time commitment on the part of the team. It was such a grace to get to know each of the teens better through that extra time spent with them. It was such a grace to witness their dedication to giving the juniors a powerful and meaningful illustration of God's love and mercy through their performance. It was such a grace to watch them succeed. I am so proud of them... and that is such a grace to me!


7. In addition to all of this, there were so many unexpected gifts scattered through the weekend:
     - There were sweet girls who made a point to seek me out for one-on-one conversation and advice... which was such an honor, I still can't quite wrap my head around it.
     - Quite a few people told me that they had such a wonderful experience and that they were so inspired by this year's senior leadership team, they would be applying to be on the team next year! I wasn't surprised by the interest expressed by a few of them, but there were several from whom it was a complete (but awesome) surprise.
     - The chaperone situation leading up to retreat was pretty dicey, to say the least. There were a lot of plans that fell through, a lot of maybe's that turned into no's, and it was all pretty stressful and very not-done. The team that ended up coming together was so cool, though! There wasn't a lot of prior acquaintance within the adult leadership team, but over the weekend, a lot of kindred-spiritedness was made manifest.
     - Since I didn't have much of a personal interaction with the teens, I assumed that my impact would be minimal. I thought wrong. I received so many sweet affirmation notes, so many expressions of gratitude for the things I had done, or the one or two very brief things that I said. The fact that my affirmation bag was full of these notes was totally overwhelming.
     - God gave me a huge present by letting me feel so loved by Him during the Mass on Saturday. I don't always experience that at Mass or in prayer, and I've come to really see it as an extra gift from God, not a necessary effect of grace. I always know and believe God loves me, that I receive grace by participating in the Mass, but to feel that love and to have it make me warm, happy, and comforted is a rare and beautiful thing for me.
     - When Saturday night rolled around, we hadn't played the retreat theme song all day and, to be honest, we hadn't even played it more than once during those first 24 hours of retreat. So when we played it after Adoration and the students were suddenly excited and engaged, dancing and singing like crazy, and then calling for an encore during which they rushed the stage in a giant mob... well, it was probably due to some sleep deprivation and crazy teenager group energy... but it was cool.

After the kids left Sunday afternoon and we had cleaned up the cabins and hall,  I suddenly felt both hungry and exhausted. The adrenaline stopped and the sleepiness settled in to stay for a while. I came down the mountain with Matt, who I had briefed on the whole "Bridget & motion sickness" situation, and he was incredibly nice about and cool with"taking it slow" on our drive back. We stopped at a few places along the side of the road to look at some incredible views so Bridget could get her stomach calmed down.


After a successful trip down the hill (no barfing this time! yay!), we did a pretty quick unpack and storing of the supplies. We were all so tired and relaxed and... yeah, mostly tired. We were in Matt's office, talking about something, and it somehow got Andrea and I started making theology jokes... the obscure Trinitarian theology kind of jokes. The other people didn't think we were very funny. But before you all think that my sister and I are totally pretentious, you should know that we laughed long and hard at a fart joke on Brooklyn Nine-Nine later that same evening. Very much not pretentious people here.

Retreat was good. I'm so glad it's over. Not because it is a bad thing, but because I'm not sure how much more I could've done before falling over. I'm glad it happened and it happened well. I'm grateful for each and every person who helped prepare, run, organize, and make this retreat happen. But it's over. And now we can all sleep.

(the photos in this post are mostly an illustration of the evolution in mood some of the adult leadership went through this weekend: excitement, distress, concern, and crazy)







No comments: