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.
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 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.
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.
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:
Reflection given for the Friends of Silence Board Meeting
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.
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. />
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:
"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.
This morning the mist returned. This time it didn't curl and wisp so much as descend and envelop. Not quite fog, still it was thick enough to wrap much in mystery. As everyone knows by now, mist is one of my favorite forms of the water element we have watched so persistently emerging from the rock wall. It's not wholly water though. Mist's essential trait is that it is neither water nor air; it is an in-between being.
"Be anything you want. Be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form. But at all costs avoid one thing: success." - Thomas Merton