Sometimes I wonder
The Synod retreat for pastors of small congregations was held monday-thursday this week at Mo-Ranch near hunt tex. It is on the beautiful clear meandering Guadalupe river in the Hill country of Tx. I've been going there for over 25 years.
The folks who came were from all over the synod and one from Pennsylvania. Word got around about the retreat. We had Dr. Arun Jones from Austin Seminary as the workshop leader and he led our discussion with good content and evocative quesitons and good humor. I heard many good comments about him and his leadership role. Rev. Carol Waters led the worship and once more it was wonderful interwoven with the themes that Arun presented.
It even rained in the Hill Country while we were there, someone said 3 inches. It was not unpleasant and the afternoon cleared up and was lovely.
It is also a nostalgic place to me. It has a lot of connections with my life at the time my Daddy died. Bittersweet But today on the news I heard about a drug that is taken in pill form to treat the kind of cancer that killed my Daddy. I pray that some of the testing of drugs and methods they did with him gave them information that was helpful now.
I stood by the river for a few minutes after the retreat was completed. Looked up the tightly tree lined river and could see the grasses on the bottom swaying underwater as if in a gentle breeze with the ebb and flow of the water. It runs through rocks to be so clear. There was a rock in the middle that split the water and the flow around it was particularly lovely.
There was a car-trailer/semi accident on the way home that I got there before the sherrif. I heard one man say two were badly injured. The traffic crept past on the grassy shoulders. I could see the two people, sitting up off the road on the side at a schoolyard. The trailer was at an angle to the car. I passed two ambulances in the next 5 minutes that were racing to help.
I wasn't far behind that accident. four cars had pulled over, the people had been moved, but it was less than 10 minutes or so before I got there.
I had stopped for 10 minutes at a store that sells Wildflowers, for no particular reason just to look.
There was irony in the timing.
The 400 miles home moved quickly as I began to pray for the people in my parish. I think I got them all, the ones from the book. I was happy to have the list so etched in my brain.
Lots of things happening. God abides... as the early sunsets remind us the sun is still moving and the earth is still turning... Whooosh... Thanks be to God.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2006
The folks who came were from all over the synod and one from Pennsylvania. Word got around about the retreat. We had Dr. Arun Jones from Austin Seminary as the workshop leader and he led our discussion with good content and evocative quesitons and good humor. I heard many good comments about him and his leadership role. Rev. Carol Waters led the worship and once more it was wonderful interwoven with the themes that Arun presented.
It even rained in the Hill Country while we were there, someone said 3 inches. It was not unpleasant and the afternoon cleared up and was lovely.
It is also a nostalgic place to me. It has a lot of connections with my life at the time my Daddy died. Bittersweet But today on the news I heard about a drug that is taken in pill form to treat the kind of cancer that killed my Daddy. I pray that some of the testing of drugs and methods they did with him gave them information that was helpful now.
I stood by the river for a few minutes after the retreat was completed. Looked up the tightly tree lined river and could see the grasses on the bottom swaying underwater as if in a gentle breeze with the ebb and flow of the water. It runs through rocks to be so clear. There was a rock in the middle that split the water and the flow around it was particularly lovely.
There was a car-trailer/semi accident on the way home that I got there before the sherrif. I heard one man say two were badly injured. The traffic crept past on the grassy shoulders. I could see the two people, sitting up off the road on the side at a schoolyard. The trailer was at an angle to the car. I passed two ambulances in the next 5 minutes that were racing to help.
I wasn't far behind that accident. four cars had pulled over, the people had been moved, but it was less than 10 minutes or so before I got there.
I had stopped for 10 minutes at a store that sells Wildflowers, for no particular reason just to look.
There was irony in the timing.
The 400 miles home moved quickly as I began to pray for the people in my parish. I think I got them all, the ones from the book. I was happy to have the list so etched in my brain.
Lots of things happening. God abides... as the early sunsets remind us the sun is still moving and the earth is still turning... Whooosh... Thanks be to God.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2006
posted by Bobbie Giltz McGarey at
8:05 PM
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