Confirmation

This evening our confirmands will be in retreat. Hmmmm... retreat. Retreat means to get away, to turn away and turn around, to remove one's self. In the church we often think of retreat as a necessary breaking away from the noise and clutter of the world so we can focus better on Jesus and hear God speak to us in that still small voice that we allow to get swallowed up when we are in that place which is "not retreat." 

But as I think about this weekend, I am also painfully aware of how our congregations spend so much of life in retreat. We retreat from that which might be controversial or upsetting. We turn away from seeing and hearing the things which are uncomfortable or seem impossible to do anything about. We retreat from conversation that is deep and meaningful because it might touch on the stuff of life that calls us to accountability. We retreat from our neighbors who may not walk the journey of faith just like we do. We keep things on the surface because deep down we may just come face to face with God... which is a great thing but what if we discover God isn't like what we learned or thought? Maybe God is greater than our imagination. Imagine that! In the process we may just come face to face with ourselves and realize that there is so much more to learn in this world.

I pray for a powerful retreat with God for our young people this weekend. 

I pray that when we come home we all might choose to embrace those other things we have been retreating from. Just as Peter, James and John retreated with Jesus on a mountaintop... and wanted to stay there... they discovered that on coming back to earth the face of Christ is most powerfully seen in the places we least expect or imagine... in the everyday.