Freewrite Fifteen on a Tuesday

Sunrise at Joseph and Mary Retreat Center, Mundelein, Illinois, August 2023 

I am having a writer's block. So, I am going to have a fifteen-minute freewrite and then go into some Centering Prayer (with the nuns of House of Prayer East Moseley). Then, I will have an hour and a half to write what I hope will be a lovely blessing for the whole 2nd Half Collaborative. I don't even remember doing this last year. Ack!

Somehow freewriting loosens my brain up. I love blessing people, but how do you summarize a blessing after 10 months with this great group of people? The first-ever group that we actually had an opening retreat that was face-to-face at the beautiful Chicago retreat center (the name escapes me, but I will post a picture of it at the top). That was such a lovely time, and I felt like I floated. It was an effortless time of relating with a great group of people. It was small - 13 participants and five facilitators. The grounds were lovely, and they had BIKES to take and ride (so, of course, I did a 25-mile round trip to Lake Michigan and back on our day of Silent Prayer - because that is what Carol does). 

I think part of the reason I have a block is because I spent a delightful morning in a two-hour talk with spiritual directors in training. It was on "Cross-Cultural Spiritual Direction," and I'm no expert, but they asked me back again.

I forgot the planned "statio" time of entering into God's presence and launched right in. Still, part of that was that we started with everyone introducing themselves and where they were from. (Not my choice because that was part of my time of statio - but I didn't communicate that to the person in charge.) The start of my talk is about where I am from and what a culture shock it was to go into the church after not being raised in it (I still feel a little out of place in the traditional church - not in the body of Christ, however). 

Anywho, the talk went well, and I am still thinking through it. Good questions that I did not field super well, but that is OK. I feel, overall, very happy about how it went. 

Maybe I just need to ponder that a bit longer before I go into my next thing: writing my blessing. It is probably 50-100 words, but I want to wait and ponder that too.

I also have a directee at 2:30 where we will evaluate her time through the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius. That should be good. Then, I have this writing, but tomorrow, George has the day off. So, I am not going to the agenda overview for a retreat that I am helping with for the 2nd Half Collaborative. We are going to go to one of our favorite spots: Beaver Creek! Love that place, and we have not been there since we were there with John and Katherine, and we saw that cool rainbow cloud. I miss them so much.

All that said, the people who asked me to do this talk also asked me to be a trainer for their spiritual directors. So, I would lead a monthly cohort and supervise them as they write up Contemplative Reflection Forms, I really love supervising, AND on top of all that, they are people who are international workers who are becoming directors, and that is my niche, wheelhouse, whatever you want ot call it. 

So, I am seriously considering it. It would be the Fall of 2025, and I would not be leading two groups through the Exercises like I am this coming season.

Speaking of that, I am so excited about that. This 19th Annotation group is the bomb. 

Time to go!