[Dialogue] Spirit Journey Retreat (RS-1)

[mhampton at att.net]

Wow.
Was Thursday night team dinner a prelude to divining in or diving into the weekend or both?

Thanks for the report.  I'd be interested to see a construct.

Grace and Peace,
Love and Light,
mary hampton

-------------- Original message from Beret Griffith <beretgriffith at charter.net>: -------------- 


> Dear Colleagues on the Journey, 
> 
> Here in Minnesota where the snow is melting we just completed a 
> forty-four hour weekend with forty people. The pastor at the United 
> Methodist Church in Northfield is an Academy graduate and last 
> winter, about this time, he pushed hard to offer an Ecumenical 
> Institute course for the congregation. He asked me to talk to the 
> Adult Education Committee to see if there would be interest in 
> sponsoring a retreat. I'd heard that John Cock had taught an RS-1 in 
> Hilton Head and had done some rewriting for the course. John and I 
> talked. He was interested. I briefed the committee, and got the 
> go-ahead to form a team to move forward. 
> 
> A team of five worked for the next year to pull it off. We first 
> wanted it in the fall of 2006. The Mount Olivet Retreat and 
> Conference Center where we wanted to hold the retreat books at least 
> a year out and was not available. We then reserved space there for 
> the weekend of February 16-18, 2007. It is about thirty miles south 
> of Minneapolis. 
> 
> The Spirit Journey Retreat: Empowering Our Faith (RS-1) was 
> outstanding. There were forty people including John and Lynda Cock. 
> John led the WHOLE weekend. With his additions to the weekend of 
> small group work (we even had a Grace Huddle - a highlight for nearly 
> everyone), reflection time on Saturday afternoon, songs, rituals and 
> spirit exercises, it even had a slightly spacious feel. We did start 
> at 7:00 am on Saturday and Sunday and nearly everyone showed up first 
> thing in the morning. It reaffirmed our understanding of the 
> contentlessness of the story and its relevance to current time. 
> John's leadership was outstanding and must have been exhausting, 
> recalling the days when four people taught the weekend. Lynda worked 
> with me on practics and took care of selling John's books. Work on 
> the space created a fine container for spirit work. 
> 
> About a third of the folks were from outside the congregation and 
> included four people who are experienced ToP trainers and 
> consultants. One works for a consulting firm and another for a large 
> foundation that does leadership training throughout the area. The 
> profiles of participants were interesting and ranged from 
> conservative to liberal, evangelical to progressive, somewhat 
> educated to highly educated. Several people who teach and work in 
> business had theological backgrounds. Discussions were animated, deep 
> and grounded. 
> 
> The G.O.D. rock (petrified tree), owned by Sue and Stefan Laxdal and 
> present at all RS-1 courses ever done in Minneapolis, proudly took 
> its place at the center of the room during the last session. It was 
> preceded by a dinosaur bone, a very large crystal and a large fossil. 
> The earth flag hung at the front of the room. We used a portable wall 
> designed by ToP trainer Cheryl Kartes' husband Patrick. It was 
> designed for the ToP crew and creates twelve feet of free standing 
> wall. It was the best wall ever. We used six feet of the wall, 
> covered it with a sticky wall and put four flip chart pages up for 
> every session. John had never had such a blackboard. 
> 
> Sleeping in a motel type room at the conference center with an 
> abundance of food at meals was good. It did make me a little 
> nostalgic for spaghetti on Friday and the sound of mice roaming the 
> pantry while sleeping among the food stores in a church basement - on 
> an army cot. 
> 
> Spending time with John and Lynda, with whom we had never formally 
> worked, was a time not to be missed. Ron and I had a dinner on 
> Thursday so they could both meet the team and get properly welcomed 
> before divining into the intensity of the weekend. Afterwards we 
> managed some celebratory eating, drinking and great conversation. 
> 
> Thank you to John and Lynda and to all who have gone before on this 
> journey. Those folks who had the original vision, the nerve and 
> persistence to create the RS-1 course and then to gather a body of 
> people who were insistent on getting it out to people are to be 
> remembered. Cyber hugs all around dear colleagues. 
> 
> Beret and Ron Griffith 
> on behalf of our local team: Faye Caskey, head of Adult Education at 
> the church (her husband Carl hired Vance Engleman in Oaklahoma); Clay 
> Oglesbee, Pastor (Academy grad); Ron Griffith (first took RS-1 in 
> 1968), Bill Ostrem (environmental activist in Northfield). 
> 
> 
> 
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