Day Retreat

I met my friend Sheri over at the Bible camp on the other side of our town. Sheri rode her bike over and we had a delightful day with delightful weather as we met to share some prayer concerns and to study and journal in relative silence and solitude. Silence is always so comfortable between the two of us -- we would occasionally speak up to share something from our reading; Sheri is reading a book by Dallas Willard on spiritual disciplines from which she shared a few tidbits, and I shared the "Te Deum Laudamus" from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. But most of the time we just sat under the trees in the Adirondack-style chairs and read, wrote, and prayed in quiet. We both have four kids and homeschool, so having no interruptions from littles as we enjoyed our time with God and each other was such a blessing.

Sheri had to leave shortly after noon, and I was quite surprised to see four women from Lake Murray walking down to lunch; they were at the camp for a women's leadership retreat. So it was lovely to see Laura, Monica, Jan, and Laurie there, and I also spent some time talking to Norm, an artist who lives and works at the camp and who has known Keith since college. So although I chatted with people here and there, it was still a lovely day to sit under the trees and enjoy God's Creation, both human and natural, including some adorable tree squirrels.