UNEXPECTED

: not expected : unforeseen

Rock Cross on an outcropping near Lake Michigan

Thursday night, my three daughters and I set out for Wisconsin.  We stopped in Indianapolis for the night, crashing in two queen beds around 10 pm, grabbing hotel breakfast and getting back on the road.  Friday found us fighting Chicago traffic, having missed the correct route to 294 and mistakenly ending up on 90/94 (a mistake if ever there was one), followed by Milwaukee style fish fry and some time with J's family.  Saturday mid-day, after hugs all around, I left my daughters for some alone time with grandparents and departed for a solo retreat in Racine at the Siena Retreat Center.

After a few detours (there seems to be roadwork all over the great state of Wisconsin), I made it to the retreat center.  As one of the sisters took me on a tour of their facilities, I realized I was growing increasingly warm.  While not nearly at hot as the 100 degree temperatures I had left behind in Nashville, it was warm for this time of year in Wisconsin.  I thought I'd unpack my bags and rest for a while.  Once alone in my room, I realized why I was hot: there was no air conditioning.

Having grown up in a hot, humid part of the country, I can't even really imagine life without air conditioning.  Had I known there was no A/C, I would have chosen a different retreat center.  I quickly grew to be grateful for the fact that I didn't know about this facilities deficiency ahead of time.  Because the Siena Center ended up being a place with many unforeseen gifts - A/C or not.

Since this was the first time I've been on retreat alone, I had debated what my approach should be.  I e-mailed both my counselor (who leads story groups) and my spiritual director (who leads the silent retreats I attend) for suggestions.  And as I thought about how to approach this time, it was more and more clear to me that what I really wanted to do was spend time exploring my story.  A retreat would give me time and space to remember events that have shaped and formed me as a person - and the opportunity to explore those memories with God and see what He has for me in them.

Upon arriving at the Siena Center, I quickly found that I wouldn't be able to replicate the silent retreats I enjoy each spring and fall.  The Dominican nuns at Siena aren't silent, so it wasn't always possible to avoid areas where conversations were happening.  I did take my meals to a room separate from their conversations, but I decided early on to give myself the grace to move in and out of silence as the circumstances merited.  This helped me not resent it when people spoke to me and instead take things as they came.

I arrived with a goal of remembering ten key life events and writing about each of those stories.  At the end of each one, I asked myself what lesson that story taught me and where Jesus was in the event.  This was, quite frankly, emotionally exhausting work.  I needed a break after writing each story.  So I spent a lot of time at Lake Michigan, which was less than a hundred yards from my room.  After my first trip down there Saturday night, I made time at the lake a regular part of my retreat.  In fact, I skipped Sunday mass to head straight there after breakfast.

I've always been a bit of a snob about lake beaches vs. the "real" beach.  And by the real beach, I mean any of the beaches along the Gulf Coast.  That's where I grew up and I love that fine white sand and the feel of the salt on my legs as the sun dries the water away, leaving just salt behind.  Over the last few days, I learned to see the beauty of a beach that offered rocks for climbing, collecting and sitting.  I learned to appreciate coarse black and grey sand that did not cling to my feet, but brushed away easily.  And I quickly came to enjoy water that was so cold it made me gasp as I put my legs in it - there was no better or more pleasant way to cool off than this.

When I wasn't spending time climbing on the rocks, looking for stones to bring home or sitting with my feet submerged in the iciness of Lake Michigan, I came to love the craft room at the Siena Center.  There's something really lovely about a room stocked with art supplies just for use.  I collaged.  I painted.  I lost myself in making things instead of remembering things.  Which made it easier to remember when the time came around again.

It was past retreat experiences that made me want to try a few days alone at a retreat center.  But those previous retreats weren't exactly comparable to this one.  I am thankful to have found joy, peace and healing in the unexpected offerings it brought.

Shadow Self Portrait

SANCTUARY

1: a consecrated place
2 a (1): a place of refuge and protection

Where do I seek sanctuary? A quiet room? My small desk overlooking my back yard? A sandy beach? A compelling book? How often do I seek it in a glorious throne? I didn't spend my recent vacation reading the Bible every morning. I didn't pray every evening, unless you count "God is great" before each meal. I didn't meditate on God's word or his work in my life.

But in my own ways, it was a worshipful time. I saw God's fingerprints. I saw them in the vibrant seashells lining the shore. The shells weren't uniform, monochromatic or dull. Even single celled organisms merit beautiful mansions from our God.

I also saw humankind's fingerprints, in less lovely ways. Mixed with purple butterfly shells, orange swirled conchs and bleached white half moons were dirty plastic bottles, torn roofing and rusted metal. These are not the fingerprints I want to leave on this earth.

My middle daughter is becoming more tentative and less bold as she ages. When B was two, I used to joke that if fear came in pill format, I would give it to her because she didn't have any of her own. And while many moms might like seeing her begin to think before acting, I desperately want her to keep a spirit that is willing to take risks. I want her to stay true to who she is. I want to protect the core of her being and consecrate her soul to stay true and pure to who she is meant to be.

So while I have sanctuary in a glorious throne, I also strive to make my everyday surroundings a sanctuary. I want my home to be a sanctuary for dreams, for art, for play and for my children to blossom into who they are meant to be. I want our home and our time together as a family to be consecrated and I want us to find refuge and protection with each other.

SALVAGE

2 a: property saved from destruction in a calamity (as a wreck or fire) b: something extracted (as from rubbish) as valuable or useful

I have a fondness for salvaged items. It is, in fact, part of the reason I like modern art. My aunt once asked me why Marcel Duchamp is such a big deal as she looked skeptically at one of his pieces in a museum. My reply was that without his art, especially his use of found objects (ready-mades, as he called them), the art that followed couldn't have happened. Yes, he turned a urinal into art by turning it on its side and calling it a fountain. But isn't that true creativity? Seeing something for more than what it is? Seeing a beauty that has little or nothing to do with its original, designed purpose?

Dauphin Island, where we are staying this week, has been bombarded with several storms in recent years. As a result, items ranging from fencing to roofing to roads (yes, literal pieces of road) lie between our rental home and the water. One of my favorites to pass on my way to the water is this broken planter. I think it might actually be more beautiful in its current state and location than before the storm that landed it there. I haven't tried to pick it up, but part of me longs to haul it back to Nashville and create something from it...


Perhaps part of my fondness for salvage is that I feel like a bit of a salvage project myself. I feel broken up, in pieces, scarred. But I also feel like those pieces are being used to create something new, unexpected, more beautiful. And like the planter, life's storms break me up and land me in surprising places.

It's worth remembering my own brokenness as I encounter others whose rough edges grate against me. Can I find a way to extract something valuable and useful from everyone? I'd like to.

BAREFOOT

: with the feet bare

Sometimes it's worth it to walk barefoot. I have city feet. Even in my own home, I wear shoes. I'm just more comfortable this way. But today, I had been wearing water shoes for most of the last twenty-four hours and the sand rubbing against my foot was beginning to chafe. So as I walked back from the beach, I went barefoot.

This required that I walk slowly, look carefully where I was walking and tread lightly. As I did so, I thought this was advice that perhaps I should heed in my life more broadly.

It would do me good to walk more slowly and generally proceed slower through life. There are experiences I miss because I am going too fast. Things I don't see. People I don't meet. Missed opportunities.

For similar reasons, I should look at my surroundings more carefully. The beach is littered with debris brought in from hurricanes. This means that tar, metal and plastic lie alongside the beauty that should litter any beach - amethyst seashells, pearly oyster shells, swirling conchs. It's worth surveying my environment instead of just moving through it untouched.

And while I tread lightly to preserve my tender feet, I wonder how often in life I step on others in my rush to do what I need to do. Treading lightly might make me and others a little less bruised...

PREPARATION

1: the action or process of making something ready for use or service or of getting ready for some occasion, test, or duty
2: a state of being prepared : readiness

My back counter in the kitchen is loaded with food right how. A box sits in the center, holding items that are neatly stacked inside. But tidiness ends there as other items are stacked on top of the orderly ones, spilling over the sides, and filling the entire space. We leave for a week at the beach tomorrow and I will be so glad to get there, if only to be done with the preparation.

Once upon a time, the preparation was nearly as much fun for me as the trip itself. I loved the organizing, the planning, the execution, the completion. But I'm much more about the process now than the product, and the preparation just feels like something I must do to get to the good stuff - laying on the beach, feeling the salt on my skin as the water dries it, the smell of the salt in the air.

It also feels like preparation is keeping me from the good stuff - writing, reading, relaxing. I wanted to sleep in on the first day of summer vacation instead of getting up at 6 AM, knowing what awaited me.

But this is part of the tension of life - the need to prepare balanced with the need to experience. I hope all of my preparation today and this week will pay off by allowing me to fully, joyfully experience our time at the beach.