This weekend, 40-50 of us retreated to the Poconos. The theme was "an ancient faith in a post-modern world" - an interesting topic, and one that could have been approached from quite a number of angles. There was clearly not enough time to cover all of them -- or at least, not without depriving people of the opportunity to relax, unwind and socialize.
Among the angles that Rev. Rock did explore involved showing a Black Eyed Peas video and then impressing FOCUS into service as (basically) a bunch of focus groups on how to make FAPC more relevant/popular in NYC. Unlike most focus groups, I suppose you could say we actually paid for the privilege of offering our insights ... but then again we got a lot out of it as well, I think. We tried putting together all the kinds of things we had brainstormed about in our focus groups for the self-organized worship service on Sunday morning. It was really moving, and also very funny at times. (We can't help it; we all have a strong humor/sarcasm/irony circuit in our wiring.) It was nice holding hands for prayer - that seemed to amplify something for me. A lot of us got really emotional when R described how he'd started getting involved in the church three years ago. It seems that early on he told some folks that he did not in any way believe what they believed. At many churches, people would have shunned him. Or they would have openly prayed for him to see the light. Or they would have tried to win him over through argument and convince him that he was wrong. He was prepared for any of those responses. Instead, he got the first of several great shocks on his faith journey when he realized that he was still entirely welcome to continue hanging out with this group and wrestling with sticky moral and theological issues as a confessed atheist/agnostic. And I gather that he started to see, over time, that perhaps the god in which he disbelieved was too small. Another very powerful part of the retreat was the music. Singing reaches me as few other things do. We had at least three professionally-trained musicians in our midst, and a number of very strong amateurs. We sang sacred and profane songs, sometimes in parts with harmony, sometimes a capella, sometimes accompanied by guitar, keyboard or even (around the bonfire) sound effects.
We also enjoyed nature walks and played games such as Scattergories and Apples to Apples (both new to me) and foosball with an electronic scoreboard. Very fun. For pictures from the retreat, try this link.
On my return to the city, I went rollerblading around the park (overcoming my dread of the hills, little by little). And then tonight, I caught up a bit with some old friends. It feels good.
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