Hour 8 -- Reflections of Silence (first hour) When I was a teenager, one of the songs on the Top 10 Hit Parade was "Silence is Golden," which struck an ironic chord in my life since I was the oldest of seven siblings--six sisters and a baby brother. As a result of this type of family life, I am comfortable in crowds of people, but no one wants to be around me if I don't get regular times of silence and solitude. Therefore, a Silent Retreat sounded like a gift from God to me.

We actually started out with a meal and conversation. Pleasantries were exchanged and then at 7 p.m. we had community worship that lead into silence. I had forgotten how beautiful communal prayers and sung prayers can be (I was raised in a church that had these types of prayers). I imagine such prayers could become mindless repetition, but I'm not sure I know that to be true. I think I've just read such comments. Would they become mindless repetition if they changed -- a different reading, a different prayer, a different choral response? I did have a moment when I did not attend to the words: I was so caught up in the beauty of the sound of the words, spoken and sung, that I had to go back and read what was just said. No permanent damage was done to my soul.

After prayer, we began our free time of silence. I've heard one can not wear masks in silence. Not so. I grabbed my Bible, and in the middle of Bible reading had to wonder why I chose to read my Bible. Would I have seemed less spiritual if I played with the dog? Not to God. He could have spoken to me through playing with the dog; yet, He graciously spoke to me through the books I read.

Hour 7 -- Dear Jesus, dreams, and names
With the start of our second book in the Apprentice Series, Good and Beautiful Life, we get to write a Dear Jesus letter. I had already been thinking about his letter because I assigned it to my high schoolers (instead of a Dear Santa letter). I was thinking about it because I wondered what I would/ should/ could write! The week of our Apprentice Christmas party, I heard a line in a song by one of my sister's friends "I want to be the one you tell Your secrets" ("Secrets" by Janna Adams and Brock Human), and I realized that was what I wanted to request of God in my letter. I had not (and, yikes! still have not written my letter) yet, after I went home from the party and fell asleep, I had an amazing dream.

The dream -- My guess is there will be symbols you will understand in this dream. I'm not going to interpret everything. I don't normally get up and record my dreams, but I felt compelled to write down two pages of notes! I was on a road trip in a weird contraption of a vehicle with friends. There was a lot of freedom. For some reason only two of us went into this place where we were going to make a garment. I was to pick out my material and a woman in charge helped. There was a man in charge too although she seemed to be directing the action. There were lots of children. I had picked out material and my sister used it. Then, I picked out other material and someone else used it. Everyone had their dresses done. I started to stand on something I wasn't suppose to (I think maybe I hadn't listened to instructions) and I almost brought down the shelves. I really didn't want the material I ended up with because it was yellow, orange, and some other color. (The color I chose was a coordinated purple.) The woman gave me a lecturing look for being ungrateful, so I took it. Afterwards there was eating, but it was clam chowder (which I've never liked and now can not eat because of my Celiac's). This place was a famous stopping place for eating fish and seafood. (I told you there are tons of symbols -- lol!) People went out of their way to stop at this place. For some reason (I don't remember everything) I needed to wash, or it seems like I was trying to be helpful to make up for being the last to make my dress. Anyway, I started to wash in the sink, but there was a wooden covering on the sink which I grabbed off. Somehow, I wound up with two parts! I went over to the fireplace where I caught them on fire! One of the children, a brother, rescued me, but he and all their children were shaking their heads. Now, I guess I was sleepy when I first wrote this down in the wee hours of the morning, but I wrote: Somehow I had uncovered a meal which they offered to the father even though it was spicy style. He took it." Go figure?! The mom, children, and patrons were all happy to see me leave. As I walked out to the strange vehicle, I told my traveling companions if the next stop involved any sewing, they should go, not me! However, I did laughingly tell them I had certainly made memories for all concerned.

Names for ourselves: We did an exercise in Apprentice group where we talked about the names we called ourselves and the names God has for us. At the time, "Elder Sister" came to my mind which wasn't a gut-punch (our leader said when we hit upon the name we give ourselves, it might knock the wind out of us), but it was a little bit of an "Oh no, bummer" moment, partly because I am the eldest sister of seven siblings (and all that involves) and because it made me think of Martha and the elder brother of the prodigal son.

When I woke up from the dream I just wrote about, I realized I thought of myself as INEPT. My defense mechanism for my lack of intelligence in math, computers, and space is to make fun of myself. I had stopped doing it during my last few years of teaching because I realized it gave my students permission to give up in areas they felt weak in. So, I had, in the recent past, said, "I lack this, but I'm trying, and I'm determined to grow and do my best." I realized I had fallen back into my old habits.

The name I felt God calling me (both the night at Apprentice group and after the dream) was /is BELOVED. At first, I thought, "Gee, I want something specific like our leader was given (and that may still happen) "We're all Beloved by God." Yet, I have realize during these past three months, knowing I'm beloved has meant a lot to me.

A God-given reason an individual does not have all intelligences -- A short time after this dream, it occurred to me that we aren't experts at everything so that we have to rely not only on God, but also on others within the body of Christ (or to build bridges with non-believers). There is an interdependence needed amongst us not only with our physical possessions, but also with our intelligences and our talents. We have what we have, and we have what we do NOT have so that we can meet the needs of each other.