A Women’s Retreat

The salsa was made

Chips and chocolate were bagged

My duffle was packed

My ride soon arrived

We threw my stuff in the back

The car was quite full

Four of us chatted

For a whole hour and a half

As we headed north

We left smoke at home

Only to find the same here

Can’t escape the fires

Others soon arrived

Beds were chosen, gear was stored

The house filled with noise

The soup was quite good

And soon began our program

On “The Masks We Wear”

We shared of ourselves

Some of us had come for years

While others were new

I’m always amazed

At the depth of our sharing

There’s laughter and tears

Bagels, yogurt, fruit

Started us off the next day

Plus coffee of course

The morning program

Concluded with mask-making

Paint, fabric, feathers

Sandwiches for lunch

At free time the group split up

For hike, drives, shopping

The smoke was so bad

That we limited hiking

To reservoir road

We walked and we talked

It was good to stretch our legs

And look at the lake

While on the way back

Ice cream cones were calling us

A delicious break

Good dinner was served

And our day’s program resumed

Each one shared her mask

Morning came too soon

We had breakfast and coffee

Then time to pack up

We cleaned and picked up

In worship we prayed and sang

Car by car we left

Such a great weekend

Fifteen women in retreat

I will come next year

 

Connection Brings Understanding

In the past week I have been a part of two events which warm my heart and give me hope.  The first one occurred on September 11—an interfaith gathering for prayer and reflection on the subject of healing.  We began with a young Muslim family reading from the Quran in Arabic and then in English.  The father shared how difficult it was to explain to his young daughter that the people responsible for the attack on 9/11 were Muslim like them.  Their actions were contrary to what the Quran says.  How does a father explain this to his child?

This was followed by a Catholic priest and then a Baha’i couple.  The Baha’i woman sang a song about lifting our hands to the light—several presenters related to this and made a reference to it.  Next, the Society of Friends and Pagan/Nature Spirituality representatives shared.  Probably the most amazing part of the evening was when a young Mormon man, Leroy, got up and said he felt like he had been called to reach out to LGBT people.  He invited anyone from that community to come up and join him.  He apologized for how they had been mistreated by the LDS church and asked them to make a statement.  Leroy then invited everyone to join him in prayer—he kneeled and prayed.

This moving part of our evening was followed by a Bosnian Islamic Imam, and a Jewish rabbi.  Our evening concluded with a father and son who shared Native American song and dance, ending with beautiful flute music.  Afterwards, we were able to visit while munching on cookies.  I finally found my way to Leroy, the young Mormon man who was eager to meet me so his group, Mormons Building Bridges, could connect with our church.  I can see interesting possibilities here.  This was certainly a memorable evening.

Yesterday, our reconciling team showed the movie “For the Bible Tells Me So” at our church.  This is a movie that shows how five normal, American, Christian families dealt with the reality of having a gay child.  We had a decent turnout considering there were competing events happening, including a BSU football game.  After the movie, one of our lesbian members shared some of her history, experiences, and how she came to our church.  We broke for ice cream sundaes, and ended up talking in little groups for a bit.  I turned around and found people pushing tables and chairs together for a discussion.  People had found us in different ways—one woman came because Leroy, the young Mormon, told her about it.

We collected names and contact information from people who want to stay connected to us and perhaps participate in a study on the Bible and homosexuality.  From there we hope to start a support group for LGBT people.

All of these connections are wonderful.  I don’t quite know where they will take my church or me.  I do know that there is too much divisiveness and hate in our world.  I know that the more we share and listen to each other, the better our world will be.  If we can learn to respect others who are different from us—whether it is religion, sexual orientation, race, politics, gender, or economic—we will be one step closer to peace.

Slavery

Today the subject of slavery came up—not once but twice.  This is not something I tend to think about.  The first time was during my pastor’s sermon about Paul.  She was talking about what Paul said concerning slavery in the books attributed to him.  My pastor noted that slavery was a normal, accepted part of society in those days.  While Paul may have talked about how to treat slaves, he wasn’t necessarily advocating the abolition of slavery—he did not feel that this was his job.  During later discussions, the subject of our own country’s history with slavery arose.  In biblical times, people often became slaves as a result of war while in the United States, the slaves were of one racial group, deemed to be inferior.  The issue of slavery was not the main focus of our morning, but it got me thinking.

Late this afternoon, I picked up a book I recently borrowed, Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  This book starts off talking about the sexual slavery of young girls.  The stories I read were about girls in Cambodia, Thailand, and Pakistan.  These are horrific stories—their purpose in writing the book is to open people’s hearts so they will join in and work for change.  A documentary will be shown on PBS in a couple of weeks. 

All of this makes me ask why.  Why do human beings treat each other this way?  Is it something in our DNA?  To be able to enslave other people, it seems that we have to first dehumanize them or in some way make them less worthy as human beings.  We can find many examples in the Bible—God favored the winners of a battle making the losers unworthy.  Hence they were killed or made slaves.  White Americans did not consider black slaves equal or even people, therefore they could justify enslaving them.  The same thinking comes through in the stories about young girls kidnapped and sold as sex slaves across borders.  Authorities look the other way because they are just poor, uneducated girls who satisfy their young men, thereby keeping their educated, middle class girls safe.  These poor young girls simply don’t matter.

Throughout time there have been brave people willing to stand up against slavery of any kind.  However, nothing happens until enough people in a society become enraged and are willing to say “no more!”  In our time, are we willing to educate ourselves about the slavery that still exists in this world and do something about it?  How can we say no?