Knights Hill Retreat

Knight’s Hill Retreat
Saturday, February 28 dawned bright and crisp. Amy and Braden Wellington had gone to the Arrisons’ home in the Knight’s Hill portion of Bridgeton the night before where they were hosted by Pastors Gwyneth and Jamie Arrison and their three children for a night of games and relaxation.. Art and Marlene Tordoff picked up Earle Harvey and Doreen Gay and headed for the Clubhouse on Moose Pond. Shortly after arrival Ruth and Dan Doughty joined the rest of us for a day of retreat learning about our Spiritual Stories and how they have evolved.
Jamie introduced us to a mind mapping activity in which we all traced several strands of our lives and then whittled those down to one to work with. All of these strands would lead back or from the center box that represented God. God is the center of our lives. In a sense, what we were developing were elements of our testimony. In between our individual activities or discussion with partners, we were shown passages in the stories in the Bible that had some direct relationship to spiritual development.
While we were left with homework to go and develop the taste, smell and hearing of our stories the time together was a great way to get to know each other through a different, relaxing, yet thought provoking means.
It was nice to have Gwyneth, Faith, Dena and Alex stop in during the lunch hour. Faith and Dena, in particular, were fascinated by a number of ladybugs that had gathered on the inside of one of the warm windows. While most of them were either scattered or removed from the window it was interesting to experience the persistence of six of the specie. I wondered what the persistence of the ladybugs meant as we returned to developing our own stories and how in order for us to complete our assignments we would have to be as persistent as those little creatures. We need to be persistent in continuing to develop our spiritual life in spite of the world around us pulling in many different directions.
I hope that others who did not have this retreat experience take advantage of the opportunity when it comes around again.