Orientation, Day 2

Friday was a long day.

We spent the morning talking about specifics of our life together: how meals will work, how transportation will work, how laundry will work, etc, etc, etc. Chris and I had been wondering about a lot of this for a long time now, so the information was very, very helpful.

Then we moved on to talk about how we would actually live together: how will we resolve conflicts, how will we respect others’ space, etc. I didn’t have much to say, which will probably not bode well for me in the future. I have learned that I rarely know what I need from the group until I know the group. It is difficult to come up with too many helpful ground rules that amount to more than common sense until you know the people involved: who the people are means everything. Still, we spent a lot of time on this.

After lunch we talked about another article, this time about a kind of cross-class encounter spirituality, i.e., what is the approach/reaction/experience, in spiritual terms, of the encounter of, say, us, with the place that many are now calling the Two-Thirds World. I loved this article, actually. I’m kind of a sucker for Ignatian spirituality stuff, anyway, especially along the lines of what David Miller was doing at LSTC for awhile. Also, this particular article was written by Dean Brackley. Back in CPE a colleague recommended that I read a book by Dean Brackley whose title escapes me but it was something like a liberation angle on Ignatian spirituality. I couldn’t find it at the seminary library, so I gave up. But after reading this article, now I really do want to read Brackley’s book. It was everything yesterday’s reading on pedagogy was not – warm, balanced, and spiritually thoughtful. Unfortunately, everyone else in the group seemed to either hate the article or found large chunks unhelpful (an odd contrast to the article we read yesterday, which I alone hated). So that’s the way that is.

It’s been a pretty intense few days of community. I am definitely ready for the weekend break. Well, the Saturday break, at least. Well, the Saturday morning break, at least. There is more stuff planned for the afternoon, and then all-day Sunday...I suppose this is the reality of immersion…