celebrating in the rain

I am surprisingly calm and well-adjusted today.

The internets were broken for about 24 hours and I had to foray into IT-Land. Calm.
The house needs a new furnace and the patio removed. Well-adjusted.
The world is crazy and hurtful. Calm.
I don't really know what I want to do with my life. Well-adujsted.

This summer has fed me in ways I didn't notice at the time.
-At Outdoor Adventure Camp we were deluged by rain two nights running. At 8pm, we were debating whether to have Eucharist in the cramped and cold dining tent or continue to play cards until bedtime. We opted for Eucharist. So, wearing jeans soaked to the skin and someone else's poncho, I celebrated with 35 damp teenagers by flashlight. It was a transforming experience for everyone involved.
-I went on retreat with Mayumi Oda and resisted it up until I actually got there. I was not prepared for sitting meditations half-an-hour long. I was not prepared for so much silence. Yet it was in the silence that I began to breathe.
-Our bishop spoke at Redeemer this week and referred to the Anglican Communion as "an ambitious experiment." How freeing and affirming to see this huge connection as a work-in-progress, as something other than an idol, as creative.

So I'm calm. I'm content in this moment.

Before Retreat

I went on retreat this past week-end to the Nature Center. Before I left, I wrote this:

On retreat. Have resisted it a lot. Long, busy, hard week. AC broke and is expensive. Still unsure about future. Not wanting time away but more time to work on work, get things finished, expanded, perfect. You'd think I'd want a retreat, but I feel guilty for leaving Loving Husband and work, still tied to what's going on back there, frustrated that I didn't bring a novel, and resistant to this experience.

Given all this, I think I really need this retreat. That much resistence to a thing means something. How about in art? I really didn't want to remove all those stitches from "el Shaddai" and it's a good thing I did.

What am I resisting professionaly or vocationally?
-listening to the Spirit (because I don't really want to hear what she says)
-giving myself to art (I might fail, I'll need more classes which take time and money)
-growing up (still)

In batik, you use a wax resist to mark out areas to remain the same color while you over-dye. Those bits get crustier and more prevalent as you continue the project, making a mess, ugly and formless. In the end, you melt off the wax leaving a complex and brilliant pattern. The resist is necessary to the meaning.