Three nights ago, according to the planets and the stars, autumn began. For those of us walking through the forest to the Retreat House or splitting wood beside Homestead, the season's edges are less defined. For days and days the trees have stood green and glowing, suffused with shimmering sunlight as the air blows alternately warm and cool around them. Then a crimson leaf appears on the path to the front door and the maple and buckeye next to Homestead are tinged red and yellow. The scruffy, molting cardinals are shaking off their summer plumage, replacing feathers to stem winter's chill. Second by second, dark cloaks the earth earlier each night; songbirds are departing; we hunt in our closets for sweaters and quilts. All around, here and there, incremental but persistent change is happening.
Lindsay | October 1, 2014
Lindsay | September 2, 2014
I suppose it's customary on a work day that falls on Labor Day to reflect on the transformative power of using our bodies and minds to create, restore, sustain, build, and assist life on this planet. At least, in some small way, that's what we hope we are doing as we split and stack wood, weed, sweep, and plant. During our last work day in March, we took a moment to recognize the beginnings of a new and hopeful vision for work among the Rolling Ridge community, whose members are exploring ways to help one another live and work in relationship with the land and ecosystems that surround us. We realized that this vision went against the tide of conventional expectations about how to make a living, but we felt it was a good vision and one that felt right for our community and that we should try.
Lindsay | August 30, 2014
I have been musing about friendship, a train of thought sparked by the recent visit of my very dear friend Pat. She arrived last Thursday, in time to join us for community supper. Before we ate, I shared the gist of my thoughts for the evening's reflection:
Pat and I have been friends for at least 36 years. We met when she came to do an internship at Sojourners; but our friendship really began when she and I fell into the habit of walking together, for miles and miles. We walked to work (about two miles down D.C.'s streets) and home again every work day of every week, for years. We walked other places too: around and through city parks and in the wildlife refuge that bordered All Saints Convent outside Baltimore. At some time early on in that cocoon of shared pedestrian movement, one of us cracked open just enough, a crack that spread to the other. A rush of vulnerable air blew in, carrying wonderment and friendship on its currents.
Lindsay | August 12, 2014
Our family has been going to Chincoteague for a week or two in July-August for nearly 30 years, and this summer was no different. Only now the little boys have become men, husbands, and fathers, and instead of a dome tent or pop-up camper, our growing family rents a several-bedroom house (or houses). Not much else has changed, though. We still enjoy biking through the wildlife refuge, passing egrets and marshmallows, turtles, herons, and wild ponies; and setting up our rusty old chairs and rickety umbrellas on the coarse sand of the national seashore, accompanied by raucous seagulls and the rough Atlantic surf.
Lindsay | July 16, 2014
Last weekend the Rolling Ridge Study Retreat board and the residential community came together for our annual retreat. The experience for all of us was wrapped in awareness of the changes afoot here. Luke and Joy had just moved in one week earlier, with their little daughter Wren and newborn son Gael. Only a week or so before that, we had had our last community supper with Bob and Jackie.
The first session of our retreat was given over to each of us sharing what we brought to the moment. This is what had risen in me:
Lindsay | June 26, 2014
The reflection shared here has no tales of garden, turtles, woodpeckers; no sudden discoveries or mesmerized moments. It does have a back story, which begins: in the late 1990s, after more than a decade of involvement with the people and vision of Rolling Ridge, Bob and Jackie Sabath began their journey to residential community here. This meant, among other things, building a home. After profound giving of time, creativity, artistry, nurturing energy, sweat, and personal resources, a lovely, gracious and ever-hospitable home was built, Foxfire; and here Jackie and Bob have lived and loved for 15 years. Words cannot describe, but we all know, what a profound gift their presence (vision, dreams, energy, love, skill, compassion) has been for Rolling Ridge.
Lindsay | June 26, 2014
No apologies this time. It just happens to be a season rife with opportunities for sharing reflections at various gatherings, and they seem to be coming only weeks or days apart. This one was given last Sunday morning as Circle Community gathered for worship at the Retreat House.
Lindsay | June 9, 2014
I had planned to give this reflection at a Rolling Ridge Study Retreat Board meeting that was unfortunately cancelled. I gave it instead at a residential community supper. Afterwards I was encouraged by my friends to share it here. I hesitated because it was originally intended for a specific group of listeners. After consideration, though, I think that it is one way of telling part of the story of Rolling Ridge and in that way may be of interest. So:
Lindsay | June 8, 2014
Reflection given for the Friends of Silence Board Meeting
Being "friends of silence", we spend time wondering about what it is, as we would with a life-long companion or partner. At least I do. What makes him or her, or it, tick? What are its contours, its hills and valleys, its depths, its joys? What is its personality, its mood, on any given day? What or who is it?
I suspect, indeed, that these are the questions which bring readers to the Letter. They find inspiration in the quotes for sure, but deep down, they are asking, what is this silence we are all so drawn to? They read the Letter hoping for a glimpse at an answer, or perhaps at least a signpost pointing to another layer of exploration and wonder.
Lindsay | May 24, 2014
It seems that life these days, or maybe all days, is like a swirling pool of stories and experiences that move in contradictory eddies; have you noticed this? Sometimes I have difficulty knowing what end is up, let alone how I should feel about it.
Lindsay | May 7, 2014
This reflection was shared at a Still Point Mountain Retreat partners meeting on May 3, 2014. It begins with a poem by Mary Oliver:
Messenger
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Lindsay | April 23, 2014
Thoughts shared at an Easter fire near the Retreat House at sunrise
(Photo by Scot DeGraf)
Lindsay | March 4, 2014
Spring and Easter have been a long time coming. Last year, we celebrated Easter at the end of March. Today we are marking resurrection almost a month later. But more to the point, after more than 50 inches of snow total accumulations this winter, in storms that began the first days of December and were still befalling us on March 23, and with days of unrelenting, bitter cold, and temperatures at the vernal equinox still hovering in the 40s, it has seemed that a perverse test of endurance has been underway here on our mountain. />
Lindsay | February 14, 2014
This last weekend a small group of us gathered at Still Point Mountain Retreat for "Simply Silence". Between mindfully pausing to mark the hours in the Benedictine rhythm, there was time for experiencing the many dimensions of silence while wandering in the winter woods, making art, dreaming, meditating, and reading or writing as each was led. This is what emerged for me:
Lindsay | January 4, 2014
On New Year's Eve a handful of us gathered in the Meditation Shelter near midnight, having walked there under a starlit, velvet sky. The shelter was aglow with candles and and firelight. There we welcomed the new year, "full of things that have never been.", as Chardin says. We shared poems, songs, quiet, and a few thoughts, of which this was one:
Bob Sabath | December 25, 2013
O Holy Angel,
wide-winged stranger,
above a forgetful earth,
care for us, comfort us,
enfold us with your love,
and keep us safe from danger,
and not regretful,
and not forgetful
of our wonder-filled birth.
Lindsay | December 15, 2013
"In a Star-Filled Night", an Advent retreat, took place at Rolling Ridge in early December. This short sharing draws on experiences, poetry, and conversations from that retreat.
Winter has arrived early and hard to our small mountain. Most years it is mid-January before we see snow. We've had three snow storms already, a stretch of bitter cold, and sleet and freezing rain in the forecast. The several inches of snow on the ground has crusted over, crunching underfoot as we walk to check on the sheep or close in the chickens. The trees are bare and black against a pewter sky. The dark comes early.
Bob Sabath | August 22, 2013
Reflections on the Day by Stefan
Today and yesterday we have been together around Jesus words "I desire compassion/mercy and not sacrifice and religion." Startling words both then and now. It begins as always in the depths. It begins in the heart where compassion and mercy are born. Today we are reflecting around how this might happen through the powerful way of encounter. What capacity of heart is called for as we truly encounter another human being? What capacity of heart that brings us to a place of transfiguration?
Bob Sabath | August 21, 2013
Daily reflection from Stefan
Today we spent the whole day working/playing with poetry and hearing the rhythm of the words and receiving the beauty and goodness of the sounds and the meanings. We introduced a new poem today. The poem is called Self Slaved and it is by the Irish poet Patrick Kavanaugh.
Intentionally we immersed ourselves in the inspiring poems that challenge us to go further, deeper, to descend, ascend, expand, retreat.
Hearing the poems read aloud by different people, pausing to breathe, to listen to what comes up, to share if we wish, to speak of what is, to listen to that voice within which is our soul, to be in the company of those who are able to walk with us, to drink more deeply from the Fountain before each other and to see in each others eyes the reflection of truer self. This is the gift we offered to one another in our ongoing Pilgrimage of Peace.
Bob Sabath | August 20, 2013
Daily Reflections by Stefan
Today we gathered in small group to listen to one person tell the story of hearing their life's call. It was a story that has ripened and is ready to be told. As we listened to the struggles, the moments of clarity and confusion, the desire to live from the heart's deep longing and purpose, it was clear we were on holy ground. And our shoes came off. What a great privilege and honor it is to listen to another's life story.