Terrapin Station

Friday Five: After a Retreat

Jan says at RevGals: I attended an interesting conference at Oblate School of Theology this week with speakers talking about growth psychologically and spiritually with a Jungian perspective. Stimulation for three days and nights have left me overwhelmed and fatigued. Then this morning I took a friend to the airport at 5:30 am, followed by me driving the 2 1/2 hours back home. Since then, I had a busy day, ending with a tense piano lesson, I have grown very sleepy. So I am unsure about my responses in the blurry state and wonder how you feel after these busy, enriching times fit in between working periods. How are the returns from them for you?

1. Do you need readjustment time? Do you need some sleep? What do you need before returning to work and life? I attended a five-day Enneagram Boot Camp at Life in the Trinity Ministry in the first week of June. I had actually considered doing an earlier one in March and eschewed it, knowing how hard re-entry would be. At least in June, I figured, I would have less to return to at work. That turned out to be true, and yet, return was still very difficult. I was thinking very much in Enneagram language and having a hard time "snapping to" with other things. People were gracious and patient with me.

2. What do you want to do with the new knowledge gained? Do you share with friends and colleagues: Do you write about it: Journal? Even though I've studied the Enneagram for a long time now, this experience was especially deep and important. I have been writing a lot, talking with trusted friends, including a Mastermind group that helps me with accountability ("this is what I plan to do with what I learned" and then I report back on that).

3. How do you organize the new material? Or do you?  I am using large flip charts to draw pictures. I am also retyping my notes, because it helps me to then remember better what I learned. 

4. Do you seek more information, like newly mentioned books? Oh my gosh! I have the hardest time not buying EVERY book mentioned!! I do put all of them in my Amazon wish list so I can remember them. And I do buy some. i also continue to listen to the teacher, Suzanne Stabile, on CD's in my car.

5. What are your desires to do following all this? Personally? Corporately or not at all? Personally, some big changes to my spiritual practice. Corporately...I see more clearly my daily vocation in relation to people I meet. I am working on remembering those things, keeping them in my mind's eye.

Bonus: here's a pithy little bit I learned from one of Suzanne's talks, The Enneagram: Care and Transformation of Your Number. It's for Nines, which I am:

Instead of surrendering yourself for the sake of peace

Surrender peace for the sake of yourself.

 

Friday Five: Friday 13th

Friday Five, as posted by Karla at RevGals:

1.  Are you superstitious about anything?  Like, lucky socks for competition, special necklace for preaching, etc.? I knock on wood when I say things I don't want to happen, and when the salt spills I always throw some over my left shoulder. Otherwise...no.

2.  I'm going on vacation on Tuesday.  I have never been so ready for vacation.  What are you looking forward to? Getting new countertops in our kitchen on Monday! Of course, this weekend we have to remove everything from the lower cabinets and drawers and tear out the old countertop (the tearout is really my hub's thing). Then, the new counters on Monday...and then we have to figure out what to do with the 40 year old cabinets (awful) and the walls. :) The Never-Ending Story, home improvement!

3.  There is a lot going on in sports right now--World Cup, Basketball finals, and much more.   If your life were a sport, what would it be, and why? Competitive hammock sleeping.Speed reading. I don't do sports.

4.  Hey!  Remember orange push-up ice cream treats?  What happened to them?  What is one of your favorite summer treats?  Ice cream sandwich, popsicles, frozen grapes, fruit pizza, DQ Dilly Bar, etc.? I loved those push-ups in elementary school! I love cold watermelon and home-grown tomatoes warm from the sun.

5.  So there is this thing called "Listserve" that picks one random person per day to write an email to like a million people world-wide.  It's pretty cool. Some people make music suggestions, offer sage advice, or plug their latest interest/project.  If you could write a note to a million people around the world, what would you say? I would say, Hey People! Reach out to just one other unknown person today, and really listen to what they have to say. Learn their name. You can do it with the checker at the grocery store. The guy at work you only see in the hall. If all of us did this, and then all of THEM did it, and they told two friends, and THEY each told two friends...we would start to rebuild civil and caring community in the world. Give it a go. 

Have fun, let us know you played, and take care of yourselves!

Come, Holy Spirit!

Although it is Pentecost Sunday, this post is not about Pentecost worship, because I'm not attending. I hate to miss it, but after an evening and 2 full days of Enneagram Boot Camp, I need non-people time, prepping-for-the-week-time, brain-sorting time, home-with-Ken-time.

I will return to The Micah Center this afternoon for several more hours of Boot Camp and a full day on Monday, too.

Last summer I attended a Benedictine Silent Retreat in Dallas for 4 days. This is my "retreat" for this year. It's been wonderful and different and a glorious opportunity to dive deep into an amazing spiritual tool that has meant so much to me.

I first learned about the Enneagram from Suzanne Stabile after I heard hear speak on "Jonah and the 4 Mantras" at a DOK event in Dallas several years ago. At that event, I bought her "Know your Number" CD's and listened to them, and I was convicted. I've been listening to CD's and MP3's that I've ordered online from the Life in the Trinity Ministry online store since then, and of course Suzanne was the speaker for the RevGals cruise in January. This is my 4th workshop with her this  year.

In Boot Camp, along with a tremendous amount of learning and hard work, we are doing an exercise, taking a poem titled "Where I'm From" and rewriting it using our own life references. Then we take turns reading them aloud. These are the purest Holy Spirit moments for me, so far...because, although I didn't realize it when I wrote mine, these are an opportunity to go to amazingly raw and private places.

When I got up to read mine, and afterward, I shook. I never have a problem standing in front of people...but telling those truths, obscure as some of them probably were to everyone but me...was a breath of air, an opportunity to feel free and safe with a group committed to learning their truths and working to improve themselves through it. There's some Spirit for ya.

Of course, the great temptation in these workshops is to try to write everything down...but learning from Suzanne is, as she says, like drinking from a fire hose. She's a fast talker. Also, I have finally stopped trying to take notes on every number, and am just concentrating on my own. The whole point is to work on myself...and working on other people, based on their numbers, is like trying to teach a pig to sing. 

It has rained this morning. We sat outside in the hot tub with the rain falling on our faces and watched the squirrels play overhead. I planted some impatiens. I am making quinoa and brown rice.

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