A post I began in January of '08:
This past Martin Luther King holiday weekend, I attended MoSAIC's (Methodist Students/Seminarians/Young Adults for an All-Inclusive Church) and OnFire's joint conference/leadership training retreat in West River, Maryland. I have to admit that part of what I'd been most excited about in preparation for the trip was that the Monday following the retreat, I would have the chance to see and spend time with my former fellow interns at Sojourners who remain in Washington, DC working new, non-profit, justice-y jobs. Like many events in our lives that we sign up for and attend, I had looked around a couple web pages and learned some things from a friend about the organizations, but I didn't necessarily know what to expect from the weekend, and so I didn't think about it too much - and so, images of my old neighborhood and dear friends in DC crowded my mind.
This past Martin Luther King holiday weekend, I attended MoSAIC's (Methodist Students/Seminarians/Young Adults for an All-Inclusive Church) and OnFire's joint conference/leadership training retreat in West River, Maryland. I have to admit that part of what I'd been most excited about in preparation for the trip was that the Monday following the retreat, I would have the chance to see and spend time with my former fellow interns at Sojourners who remain in Washington, DC working new, non-profit, justice-y jobs. Like many events in our lives that we sign up for and attend, I had looked around a couple web pages and learned some things from a friend about the organizations, but I didn't necessarily know what to expect from the weekend, and so I didn't think about it too much - and so, images of my old neighborhood and dear friends in DC crowded my mind.
As Brian led us through the first worship service, he invited us to recognize that which was occupying our minds about other parts of life (troubling and exciting) coming into the retreat, as well as that which loomed ahead - to look at those things squarely, recognize their importance, not surpress them, but try and set them aside to come back to at the end of the weekend. So, I set aside thoughts of looming school and church work, other plans in the works, and even the excitement about seeing dear friends who I'd not seen since we lived in intentional community together back in August. And I entered the retreat. The content of the retreat was great - we told our collective Christian story together, told our own stories, heard others' stories, gained insight on project planning, built relationships, and made plans for concrete next steps for the movement toward the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and queer persons.
Since I didn't ever finish up this post, I thought I'd go ahead and follow-up/complete and post it:
Basically, what I was getting at with the subject of this post is that the retreat felt like it fit the justice hole that Sojo left me with - the lgbtq piece of things that I discussed with others even while we were still at Sojo.
This link is to the video spot I did on the retreat, along with about 9 other folks. It's a message to the delegates at General Conference, which happened in May of 08, so this is all quite past due - but might as well get this up onto the blog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HMlrXCmppE
Since I didn't ever finish up this post, I thought I'd go ahead and follow-up/complete and post it:
Basically, what I was getting at with the subject of this post is that the retreat felt like it fit the justice hole that Sojo left me with - the lgbtq piece of things that I discussed with others even while we were still at Sojo.
This link is to the video spot I did on the retreat, along with about 9 other folks. It's a message to the delegates at General Conference, which happened in May of 08, so this is all quite past due - but might as well get this up onto the blog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HMlrXCmppE
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