 Take 20 minutes each week to breathe, listen, and be still. Haven returns November 5 and continues through February 11, meeting Wednesdays at 7:40 p.m. PT / 8:40 p.m. MT / 9:40 p.m. CT / 10:40 p.m. ET (except December 24 and 31).
A contemplative experience for the dark season, Haven invites you to turn off your camera and enjoy a moment of music, poetry, and meditation. Please contact Kat at [email protected] for the Zoom link. We’d love to feature your poetry during Haven. If you have a short, inspirational poem (up to 20 lines), please email it to Kat and mention if you would like to read it live when you send your poem.
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 As we walk onward together in Community of Christ in Canada, moments of connection and shared reflection remind us of the Spirit at work among us. During a recent retreat at Samish Island, Vickie MacArthur and our new Director of Leadership Development, Lanette Vawter, experienced the power of sacred community that transcends faith traditions. Vickie reflects on how openness, friendship, and quiet listening can help us deepen our shared discipleship as we continue this journey—together. By Vickie MacArthur, from the Lethbridge congregation I always take a deep slow breath as I turn into our beloved Samish Island campgrounds. It’s a cherished moment of arriving, of leaving behind the busyness of my everyday life, a chance to slow down into “Sabbath time at Samish.” This time however, I was not coming to a Community of Christ event, but to a 5-day mostly silent retreat organized by the Anacortes Mindfulness Community, a Buddhist sangha I have connected to through my affiliation with the Plum Village tradition of Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh (www.plumvillage.org). I was not arriving on my own, as my dear friend Lanette was with me, taking in her first Zen Buddhist retreat. What a joy to be sharing this retreat with my Zen Buddhist sangha with my long-time Community of Christ friend. As we stepped onto the grounds, there was that feeling of familiarity, of being welcomed home, but this time was a bit different. Usually, when Lanette and I come to Samish, we both are busy in leadership or teaching roles. This time we were here as guests. However, it also felt like we were welcoming our Buddhist friends, not only from our own love for these sacred grounds, but from our entire circle of Community of Christ friends and families. The theme of the retreat was “What Do I Do Now?”—a timely question as we all face the uncertainties of life both individually and globally. It is a question that can be asked and answered in every moment, but also over time as we seek guidance and discernment for the larger questions of our life. It is a question that cannot be truly answered when we’re too busy planning, or overscheduled, or distracted to listen. “What Do I Do Now?” is like a Buddhist Koan that cannot be understood by intellect alone, but rather invites us into a deeper way of being instead of constantly doing. As we settled into the daily silent rhythm of early morning meditation, breakfast, listening to a dharma talk by wise and caring Zen teachers, walking meditation, lunch, rest, small-group (dharma) sharing, deep relaxation, dinner, and evening activities, I could feel my body beginning to unwind, and my mind beginning to clear. I could feel myself opening to life as it unfolded all around me, watching a Blue Heron effortlessly glide in for a landing on the clear water, or the fall leaves beginning to turn brilliant gold and reds in a last blaze of glory. I savored the silence at meal times, gazing out over Freestad Lake and the guardian trees that reflect perfectly on its surface. Is this what the Buddhists mean—to have a clear mind that perfectly reflects what’s there, instead of all our muddy words and thoughts? I watched in delight as one of my Buddhist friends bowed to the prayer wheel by the Zendo (our meditation hall) then, with a sweep of her hand, sent her prayers off with the wind. How welcoming for her to have a symbol of her own faith here in a Christian retreat centre. I also watched as our Buddhist friends slowly wound their way through the labyrinth, open to this spiritual practice rooted in the Christian tradition. Truly a melding of traditions and communities—what the Buddhists call inter-being—that sense that everything and everyone are inextricably woven together. As Lanette and I sat together in the closing circle for our retreat, at home in the familiar surroundings of the Christian Fellowship Centre (CFC), with memories of the old barn that used to be there, both of us had the feeling of being surrounded by generations of RLDS and Community of Christ families—people just like us, yearning for wholeness, who dreamed the best for future generations, evolving from a “one true church” and other limiting beliefs into a universal movement of Love. We could feel their smiles, their hopes, their laughter, their tears, their undying support. Slowly, the individual question of “What do I do now?” morphed into a collective question of “What do we do now, together?” Community of Christ? Anacortes Mindfulness Community? Plum Village Buddhists? We may have different teachings and practices, but at our core, we all want—and are working toward—the same goal of peace, wholeness, and justice for all. As we move into a new structure that brings together two Mission Centres into a Canadian Church, we would do well to keep pausing and praying, and asking “What do we do now?” both in the short term and the longer eternal view. Perhaps that question can only be answered when we ask “Who are WE now?” As we bring together mission centres and congregations with diverse needs, beliefs, and ideas across a huge geography, I’m imagining not just conversations, but time and space for spiritual practices that help us listen deeper together into this question—one that can only be answered when we take time to listen to the Holy One and to each other. I’m also imagining conversations and sharing with other traditions, in churches, mosques, temples, and forest cathedrals. It’s time to truly move beyond not only the walls of our church, but the walls of religion. The world is waiting. |
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