Hello, Friends!
      I had planned to fill this space with some of the inspiring tidbits I picked up last weekend at the Holy Boldness Urban Ministry Academy, with some practical, informational notions of how our process of envisioning may take place.   Then I wound up at a retreat center, and my perspective, and my sense of what's of utmost importance, did some significant shifting. I wasn't there for a retreat, or for any official spiritual reason.  I was there to work,
as a supervising elder in the process of  helping prepare folks for ordination. 
    We switched venues this time, from  Mt. Wesley in Kerrville, to the St. Anthony center in northwest San Antonio.  Bustling to pack, driving as fast as law would allow so as to arrive  on time, getting my keyboard hauled in and set up to accompany our  worship services, I barely paused long enough to take a good deep breath until lunch and our first session were over.
     In spite of my busy-ness, though, the place had already begun its sweet work on my spirit.  A former convent now loaned out for retreats, there are a few nuns remaining on the premises, and the years of nuns' prayers have seeped into the woodwork, and  thoroughly permeated the atmosphere.   It's not just that it's amazingly quiet there, even outside on the grounds, which are surrounded by bustling city life.   There is a deep peace, a contemplative ease, a calm welcome available to anyone who awakens to it, simply by being there.
     So by the time we had a break, time had begun to slow, and with it my pace of movement, and I realized Spirit had afforded me what I hadn't taken time to afford myself--a space for simply basking in the moment, and resting into prayer.
      I stepped outside, to find an Esperanza bush gloriously on fire with brilliant yellow blooms, and an emerald green hummingbird having his delighted way with every blossom he could savor in his amazingly quick but entirely natural movements.  Strolling the grounds, I entered a tiny prayer chapel, to find a devoted woman kneeling before the tabernacle holding the reserve Sacrament of the Eucharist, her rosary suspended between two raised and open hands, her eyes lifted toward the crucifix on the altar.
        She was spending time with the Christ, in the mystery of her  own spirit's relationship to the Holy, but present as a blessed reminder to this wandering pilgrim of what all this is about--all  this being and doing in and around the thing we call church.  Christ calls us, ceaselessly, lovingly, insistently, into the heart of Love, into awakening, into gratitude, into life--so we can carry the Christ into all the dimensions of our being, all the arenas of our lives.
        Taking time to spend intentional time with God is the fundamental behavior incumbent on us, who wish to follow Christ's lighted, loving way.  That's a big part of the wisdom woven into the teachings of the Holy Boldness Academy process begun last weekend--and you'll be hearing more from me and the other participants in time to come.   Before, during, and after all our doings, I'm going to do all I can to help our faith community find new ways (and perhaps rediscover some tried and true old ones) of growing in our conscious  contact with God, our devotion to Christ, our centeredness in the  Spirit.

        I look forward to meeting Christ with you this Sunday, and all our days to come.

Shalom,
Sarah