1st conference retreate 2017

we've been invited and encouraged by our retreat director
to carry little bits of every conference along with us throughout these
days of retreat


in the first conference we were presented with the stark
image of the gospel of the wine and wineskins


why new wine needs new wineskins
the spirit in the wine is so robust
in the new wine
it is still bubbling in fermented fervor
and the old skins being somewhat dry will refuse
to expand
we've seen it happen and we all know
is what a listening audience would have thought with jesus
preaching in the Israeli breeze one day


and he remarked time and again about a phrase in the writing of Thomas merton
the original native soul
the inviolable innocent self
the person that can get caught up during life with misperception and distortion and delusion but is actually never lost


he also used the notion of the inner child
a concept that evidently he feels is inarguable
he stated that it is there it has being
it is the essence of self understanding
the native naked soul of the person


all of this was stated in terms of footwashing
and the intimacy required to endure ones feet being washed
he tells the story of being invited to the home of a Lebanese catholic woman
and upon entering he and his friend were admitted into a room with
two large basins of water some toweles  incense in the air
they were instructed to sit and take off theire shooes which they did for
10 minutes just sat there with their naked feet the two of them
then the woman entered and knelt and intimately washed theire feet in water scented with balsam
once she had washed them she dried them and asked them to remain sitting there with
the aromas of the room in silence for another five minutes
then they were guided to a dinner table for a sumptuous meal


afterward the man's friend explained that
in many Lebanese homes the hired man washes
the feet of any traveler family or friend
as a daily or weekly custom
but for the head of the house to wash the feet indicates inclusion into the family
that in fact I had been adopted and I literally had nothing to worry about
the rest of my life in lebanon I would always have a place to stay and live


at the end of the retreat he asked us to waste all kinds of time with god
for the next three or four days
with our shoes off
walk through the cool spring grass
basically it was an invitation to lollygag with Christ


welcome to the endless summer project ladies and gentlemen
it's a brand new season with a brand new reason
and what's more
it never ends
not the way john hanson has designed things anyway


I got in touch with my inner child only to find out he was sort of a wild unruly little bastard
if you can imagine that


:)






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