Regent Retreat!

Hey fine folks!

Well, I just got back from the Regent Retreat, which was super duper, but pretty crazy too. I've had very little sleep and lots of long talks, so this may not be coherent.

We went to Warm Beach Camp, which is neither warm nor a beach. We also had to cross the border, which meant that 200 km took over 4 hours (and that was quick, since we went to an out-of-the-way border crossing... some waited 4 hours just in line). And then it poured rain all weekend until the drive home. Despite these drawbacks, it was a great weekend.

Especially fun were the talent show and the ceilidh dancing (taught by real Scots!). The talent show had everything from a professor dance-off to poetry recitals, from men in tights (literally) to a michael jackson's "Beat It!", but my favorite was the U2 cover band. One professor, one staff, and two students got together. Now, that sounds just "OK" until you realize that one of the students is OBSESSED with U2 and has pretty much all the same gear as them, including guitars, pedals, amps, etc... and knew every song off by heart. And the lead singer was absolutely hilarious - played Bono perfectly. Here is a video of the guitarist, Patrick.

Other than that, we came up with a couple new phrases. Instead of the usual "Ring by Spring, or your money back" Bible College guarantee, the new Regent phrase is "Consummate by reading break!" or, because of the wave of pregnancies, we are renaming ourselves from the "unseminary" to the "inseminary". Har har! (Also, Friday, the first day of the retreat was International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Huzzah! Grog all around!)

This morning we had my top highlight of the retreat. They have a communion service where they take time (sometimes 5 minutes or more) to pray over each person individually as they recieve communion. With over 400 people at the retreat, and about 20 stations, this can take quite a while but it is really worth it. I ended up at Polly and Phil Long's station (also known as my Greek and Hebrew teachers from Tennessee!). It was really a neat time. If you have a church where you can do something like that, I'd certainly suggest trying it.

Otherwise, I had a whole bunch of really great talks. And I finally met Rick Watts properly - I'm pretty sure he'll remember me. I think we ended up at 3 meals sitting beside each other. And the last conversation we had was great, covering my absolute favorite topic of the moment - evolution! Lots of fun.

Well, take care folks! Until next time!

Retreat is finished...

So, retreat is over. It was great. Of course, the first night I was sooo excited to be there, and be meeting new people and connecting, I didn't really sleep. Mostly sat awake with butterflies in my stomach. It was that same feeling when you were a little kid waiting for Christmas morning, I couldn't wait for the next day to come so I could keep on interacting!!
Yeah... I know how geeky that is. Shut up. Anyhoo, I'm waiting for the pictures my friend took of some of the events, since they are better and more candid than my own. Some highlights were:
Community meals - good food and fun conversation!
A football game with 7 guys and me - The opposing team didn't even cover me until they found out I could catch, for which they paid dearly! Darrell Johnson was our star QB.
Talent Show - lead by none other than the Ozzie's Narida and Narida (NEH-rid-da). The refrain of "Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy, OI! OI! OI!" still reverberates in my mind.
Service and Communion on Sunday - a slow, relaxed communion served by a mixture of students and staff, where each student received personal prayer with communion, while a violin and piano duet played in the back, later accompanied by a choir.

Tonight, I watched Babette's Feast as part of my Christian Thought and Culture course. It totally sucker-punched me. You are captured by this beautiful view of humanity, the high potential for truth and beauty, for mercy and love. You are so enraptured by this sacrificial wholesomeness that you are lost in wonder. You want to love. You want to hug someone. Then the lights turn on, and you realize that you are far from family and friends, and all that awaits you is a long bus ride home in the dark. And all that is waiting at home is a sleeping roommate and Greek nouns that need parsing. So much for inspiration! Shiloh and I exchanged these thoughts on the bus until I got off, after my 3 minute bus ride. And now instead of doing my Greek homework (it is sitting beside me) I am writing to you fine folks, and contemplating making tea to further procrastinate. Sigh. Life goes on.

(Speaking of which... I just went back to add more to the retreat section... all the highlights... and now I am here, writing this... seriously I need to do my Greek... it's a privilege... yes a privilege... one that I desperately wanted for many years.... go do your Greek Beth.....)

Retreat!

It has been some time, faithful reader, since I last posted. I have been busy. Indeed, the honeymoon stage of awe and beauty is over. The reality of loads of work and hours of library time is starting to come into focus.

Thus, it is indeed high time to spurn responsibility and diligence and instead to head out to the Regent Community Retreat! We are going down to Warm Beach Conference Centre, outside of Seattle. I am told it is neither warm, nor a beach, but that it is a conference centre. I am excited for a less formal interaction with my fellow students, the professors, their spouses, and so on and so forth. It will also be nice to escape the spiders.

Oh, did I tell you my apartment is infested with spiders. Yeah, my only phobia. Thanks Jesus. There are literally hundreds of spiders, everywhere. I've stopped looking up. I've stopped looking down. In fact, I try not to look anywhere at all. There come in all shapes and sizes. The tiny "dot" ones, I'm OK with. The little grey ones that blend right into the carpet I've similarly come to peace with. The middle sized ones that live in the bathroom I ignore. But the huge (5 inches across) leggy, icky ones still invoke terror in my heart, and my roommate lovingly catches them in plastic containers and escorts them outside (ecologist that she is). Yes, I'm looking forward to retreat. Tell you more when I get back!