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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