In last week’s blog, I mentioned that I would be leading a Women’s Retreat over the weekend on the theme “Go Out Into the World in Peace.” One of the first things I said to the women gathered as we began our retreat together was that I am not an expert in peace. My life is often as harried and stressful as anyone else’s and yet I took on the task of facilitating deeper conversation about what it means to go out into the world in peace. The first evening I had them list words or phrases that they thought defined or at least described peace. In addition, I had them tear out images from magazines that spoke to them of peace. We then laid out all of the images on 3 different tables so we could all see the images. As I predicted, a number of the words and images had to do with stillness, tranquility, solitude, quiet, beauty, and rest.
The 3 primary content areas for the weekend were focused on peace with self, peace with others, and peace with God. What the women did not know when they signed up for the retreat was that the weekend would be an experience of rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. For diving into the idea of peace with self, we looked at the scripts we were handed in our families of origins. We did some work on looking at the scripts we were handed, how we have re-written those scripts and what part of our scripts we have not yet written. From there we talked about two avenues for examining ourselves. One avenue is the 4th step in 12 step programs, taking a fearless moral inventory. The 2nd avenue is what theologian Walter Burghardt called “taking a long, loving look at the real.” Part of what we are trying to identify in ourselves are those things we might be holding against ourselves or carrying around unnecessarily. We talked about bricks and how if you set down one brick (something you hold against yourself), pretty soon you are building walls. Part of doing the work of peace is trying to keep the bricks out of your life and your relationships.
We talked more about bricks in the context of peace with others. We looked at mind maps and talked about how much of the way we live in the world stems from unconscious reactions or triggers. Living into peace with others includes being able to identify our buttons or our judgments or our refusals to hear something different from someone. When we become aware, we are better able to choose our responses. Most of us are not great at identifying our emotions in the midst of interactions with others. If we could learn to identify emotions that arise, we could make more conscious choices in terms of how we respond.
In our third content area, we talked about peace with God and did some work on identifying our early images of God and how they have changed or remained the same. We also did some reflection on things we might be holding against God or things God might be holding against us. Once again, awareness was a key aspect of living in peace with God.
Our day culminated in a reconciliation service to which each one of us came with a rock or stone in hand. The rock was a symbol of any bricks we are carrying or holding onto in relationship with self, others or God. Each one was invited to either lay the rock down or to continue to carry the rock. Being ready to lay the rock down implied a readiness to forgive someone or let go of a memory or hurt or the commitment to do those things. Holding on to the rock meant there was still more work to do and the rock was taken as a reminder and encouragement to do the work.
By the final morning, we had a service together in which we heard the story of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush. The invitation to Moses was to stop, to pay attention, to listen and see with new ears and eyes and to go away strengthened by the encounter. Maybe going out into the world in peace is really about encounter. If we will stop long enough to pay attention to ourselves, others and God, we just might be transformed and better equipped for the tasks ahead. Peace might just be a verb.