We woke this morning in Lacombe before dawn, to blusters below zero and faint flurries of snow. A cold beginning of May! Trevor is now on his way to Grand Rapids to participate in the Board of Trustees deliberations for the next three days.
As we drove to the airport this morning, we each took stock of the way our Sabbatical has begun and commented with humour that our experiences at the Prayer Summit and the Inhabit Conference were so thought-provoking and stimulating that we need the rest of our Sabbatical to unpack what we learned at each of those events! Such Spirit-filled, stimulating, thought-provoking, paradigm-shifting times!
Following our trip to L.A. and Seattle, where the Prayer Summit and Inhabit took place, we couldn't help but feel that we'd experienced a form of theological whiplash. The ethos and focus of each conference was so different from the other, it left our heads practically spinning. There was only one other person who attended both events, and he agreed that he'd been completely overwhelmed by the intense variety of expressions of faith.
After a week of allowing the events to percolate our spirits and imaginations, we put on our fingers on what it was that had felt like such a contrast between the two: while the Prayer Summit was focused on the divine, spiritual, cosmic reality of our faith, the Inhabit conference had it's eyes on the ground, the human and the tangible. One without the other would have been incomplete. Together they gave us a comprehensive perspective of the mystery of proclaiming faith in a God who is both divine and human. Mind-spinning, life-altering spectrum of truth...
So, the Prayer Summit gave loads of time and space for every kind of prayer... silent and contemplative, vocal and spontaneous, prompted and sung. And in at least seven languages: Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, Dutch, Spanish, Navajo and English.
On the other hand, the vibe at the Inhabit conference was gritty and realistic - an unvarnished look at how earthy our communities really are and how we as Jesus followers give expression to the gospel of truth and grace while truly "inhabiting" the places we live... how we echo God's decision to "become flesh and move into the neighbourhood." (John 1 from The Message) We heard many stories illustrated in the style of "Pecha Kucha", which potently summed up the heart and soul of Christians making a difference in the places they live.
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PechaKucha of a description of this method of story telling. One of the presenters who couldn't remember the name of the methodology referred to it as her "Machu Picchu" presentation! Almost, but not quite... )
The second week of our Sabbatical was spent largely preparing for our transition to Alberta. While Trev took time away to read and work on his D.Min. coursework, we also managed to take care of many of our personal affairs, including our taxes, insurance policies, as well as updates to our personal wills... all the big, somewhat daunting, but unavoidable details of life! We left feeling that things were in good order. I also took time to simplify our household and took piles of boxes and bags to the thrift store. Doing so exercised (in an oblique kind of way) our Sabbatical discipline of defining limits, prioritizing values, and choosing the better thing by asking ourselves what's important to us, what we want to keep, which belongings to give away. The benefit of doing this kind of inventory and clean-up is a common practice which, when viewed through the eyes of faith, has implications for the way we are formed spiritually. We do this on a metaphysical level when we take a close look at all that we carry around in our beliefs about God and his creation. The task of spring-cleaning and taking care of our affairs in this realm means to simplify the spiritual household and get rid of the clutter of tainted belief, worn-out attitudes, dusty prejudices.
So, when we packed our van on Saturday, we took with us only what we really needed and loved. Just the things we had decided would be best for the journey and our time in Alberta. Of course, it still amounted to a fairly impressive pile of stuff! But, we're ready. And whatever we didn't bring, we can probably do without and pick up a long the way.
As always, there is so much more to say. Stay tuned.
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