Dear Friends,

As you read, I have just returned from a Chapter Retreat with my ministerial colleagues. It is a chance to move out of ordinary time and ordinary obligations and responsibilities to a brief time of contemplation, commiseration, and learning. It is an opportunity for me to connect with friends and build stronger relationships. I have high hopes for my short time up in The Cities.

It is good to occasionally move out of ordinary time into retreat, to draw back, away from something or into something different. And there is a price to pay, of course. I felt the weight of all the “undone,” of all the work I owed others so that they could do their work. I’ll be playing catch up for awhile. But aren’t we always? I had to take off that backpack and walk a way without it. I’ll return renewed and more ready to assume the load.

I pray for you, with spacious time, to break your routines and retreat, see what rest and revelation come to you. I pray for you, with over-the-top time filled beyond reckoning, to break your routines and retreat, see what rest and revelation come to you. May you find a way to retreat, if only for a little while, as you remember, today and every day, that you are loved, your are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.

 

Blessings, Rev. Rita