[Dialogue] Spirit Journey Retreat (RS-1) - Grace huddle?

[John Cock]

Thank you much, Janice. You're too kind. 
 
Here's a quick response to your questions, plus. Excuse me if I gush a bit.
 
30 min. Grace Huddles/Pleno: after presentation/Tillich para. 12, we hand
out "Life-changing Events" sheet for individ. reflection of 10 events, and
some marked with "G," for grace; then, in grps. of 5-6, each shares a
"grace" event (very powerful), and as group they write big sentence on dyn.
of grace . . .  "We experience grace when . . ." to be read at Grace Pleno.
They get it in spades. This huddle/planary is the breakthrough of the
weekend, only to be matched by the church session, where we emphasized "When
have you been on the point?" and "When next?" 
 
Something like that. We are working ind-reflect/sub-group-sharing dynamic
into the four main sessions. This construct is less rational (more focus on
sentinel paragraph[s]) and more about grounding and sharing experience . . .
so they will never, never forget they all HAVE experienced the deeps . . .
and will never forget that fact.
 
Found fine new translation of Bonhoeffer's "Freedom." Old papers contexted
(and less emphasis), still fine; more a "retreat" and less a "studies"
weekend. Exciting to see the ToP participants respond so enthusiastically
this weekend. Weekend at least as powerful as ever. Fine participants'
manual with design, loads of songs, rituals, Geneva, reading list, the
papers, etc., thanks to Beret and Ron (and our borrowing much from Shirley
Heckman Snelling's resources), as well as their excellent prep, decor, and
orchestration. Movie, "As Good As It Gets," got them clear that
"transformation flows through TWLI"; Sun. morning most understand that
Melvin, Carol, and Simon could well crash and burn without a community of
faith, though a few were trying to dub Carol a saint (shades of Miss Miller)
-- talk about the blind leading the blind (in the movie). We will pass out
five pages of quotes from the web next time. Never has a movie had so many
great and hilarious one-liners. My favoirte, by Melvin: "I can't get back
into my old life. She has evicted me from my life."
 
Beret/Ron/Lynda/I are doing some sig. reworking after this MN experiment.
Maybe what we need to do is call a meeting to present reworked RS-I's folks
have done (whatever we name it, if we do) and then corporately work on
construct, pedagogy, and marketing. If we meet and can't get a consensus
(blocked by tradition or untradition) we can go our ways and do our best
with gusto and meet again sometime, maybe.
 
God, it's good to watch people come alive before your eyes, especially when
cynicism ("the living dead") is trying to eat us alive these days, 
 
G&P,
 
John 
 
P.S. Best resonating poetry line: "If only, most lovely of all, I yield
myself and am borrowed/ By a fine, fine wind that takes its course through
the chaos of the world." Worth it all just to read the poetry again, out
loud, in public. I told them I have placed these poems by DHL and the
paragraphs by the four theologians in my 3rd Testament (1st = OT, 2nd = NT),
which drew a sharp admonition from a traditional Lutheran theology professor
(who, in measured tones, said, "Paragraphs from Luther would have been
richer" [maybe we could look there]) -- the group bowed to him as they
affirmed my comment. Whole lot of bowing and laughing going on this weekend
-- and some old-fashioned attacks -- "very good to know."

  _____  

From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Janice Ulangca
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:28 PM
To: Colleague Dialogue
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Spirit Journey Retreat (RS-1) - Grace huddle?


Beret, congratulations to you, the Northfield UMC team, and to John Cock
(and also Lynda)  for such a life-changing event.  John was always a
powerful pedagogue.  It was a marathon, but I can see why he needed to do it
himself.  He didn't have time to train a team to lead with anything like his
ability.  (Remember the Pedagogy courses, and the years of mentoring?!)  The
decor and "blackboard" sound fabulous.
 
Please say some more about the Grace Huddle!  And anything else you can
share about the spirit exercises.
 
Many of us can testify that this kind of event will reverberate through
lifetimes.
 
With gratitude for this contribution to history,
 
Janice Ulangca
 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Beret Griffith <mailto:beretgriffith at charter.net>  
To: Dialogue at wedgeblade.net ; OE at wedgeblade.net 
Cc: rgriffith at charter.net 
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 2:00 PM
Subject: [Dialogue] Spirit Journey Retreat (RS-1)

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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