Recently Connie and her son, Reuben, came to stay. They helped me to apply wood preserve on plywood that was then labeled, cut and stored away to protect our windows in the event of another hurricane. Connie and I also decorated a bedroom and completed a few other jobs as well as having rich conversations and trips out. I will hand over to Connie for the rest of this blog:
Bearing a complex grief story since the passing of my husband 20 months ago, I have felt it is time to go somewhere I can be distant enough from daily life concerns and can leave a marker on my grief journey - a journey that requires me to take a greater initiative to explore and experiment. So, with God’s grace, here I am at the Hummingbird Retreat in the sunny Grenada of the Caribbean. This is my 2½ week stay at Hummingbird Retreat. Gladly, my son Reuben came and joined me from the 2nd week. Together with Hilary, we have worked as a team for her house project, we have explored a Spice Trail (ended up climbing over bamboo and overgrows in the jungle before we noticed that we had missed the sign for the easy trail), we found the way to the Mt. Carmel Waterfall (so we prized ourselves with a wild swim!), we joined the worship in local churches (Reuben even joined a Bible Study on Jonah 3), we shopped, cooked and ate together, we celebrated birthdays together…. It has been full-on 17 days 😊!!
One of the biggest attractions of this house for me is its closeness to the seaside. Both the sight and the sound of the vast ocean are not only pleasing to the eyes and the ears, it also brings back my love of simply gazing at the ocean and being fascinated by its visible and invisible movements. This gives me space to ponder on God’s movements within me. I always carry this image of Jesus sitting by my side on a hillslope and watching the ocean together. Knowing Jesus is by my side as I am finding my path on this stage of a spiritual journey is stabilising and calming.
At the start of my stay, Hilary gently introduced me to the inside and outside of the house, as well as the friendly and welcoming culture around the area. I could hear her clear vision of the whole place, despite the daily noise and messiness of the ongoing building works inside the house. As time went by, I learnt more of her story from having the dream of developing a retreat house in Grenada (where her husband grew up) to the BIG move from England to Bathway and her 18 months so far managing this mammoth project on her own, so much courage and faith, and so much letting go in response to what God has placed in her heart, and her husband’s. Her story and my story weave a tapestry of God’s grace and blessings in the midst of losses and sadness while we are making our way on the healing path. Our morning body prayer (using the Lord’s Prayer) together, followed by silence and stillness has been a great start to each day. I am thankful for this deep friendship and companionship, feeling well nurtured, encouraged and enthused.
My main task in the first week here was to help decorate one of the guestrooms, which was later decided to be the room for my son when he arrived. We were pleased with the progress of the work and were on our hands and knees to give a final cleanup after the paint job. While I was scrubbing and wiping, John 14:2-4 came to my heart: “My father’s house has many rooms (just like the Hummingbird Retreat House)…if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am" (just like me preparing the room for my son, having the heart of doing up the place for him because of the longingness to meet him and welcome him the following day at the airport). This parallel experience is the ‘graced awakening moment’ (a term used by James Finley in The Healing Path) that brought me to know how much my Lord Jesus has longed to meet me at the place where he has prepared for me. My getting going with the journey is essential to reach that joy of reunion in my daily practices.
There have been other graced awakening moments:
One of the things I like to do when going to the beaches is to free-float on the water – just to relax, be still, and be held by the gentle waves. If I face up, I can watch the clouds. If I face down, in some of the beaches, I can enjoy counting the small fishes swishing around. So, I simply be, and notice God’s amazing presence and safe holding through their Creation.
Being covered in mud at the Sulphur Springs was a fun way to be close to Creation. The scrub and the extraordinarily robust massage afterwards brought me to the awareness that behind those slow-moving and laidback outlooks, there lies passion and proudness of what the local gems could offer to the world.
In the early morning of my birthday, God gave me the joy of seeing the beautiful sunrise. This is another awesome presence of God, illuminating warmth in my heart. With this, God also reminded me of their ongoing work in the formation of my innermost; an unceasing invitation to join in their fellowship of love and recover at my own pace.
During the second week of stay, the biggest joy was going down south to St. Georges, the capital city of the island, and around nearby towns to different shops and supermarkets with Hilary to hunt for food we need and the essential items for the new kitchens in the retreat house. The joy of this was to see God’s timely provisions and hence getting closer to the completion of this important part of house!!
One of my other tasks is to have a first-hand experience of the Soul Space Room, which, according to Hilary, is going to be the heart of the retreat house. It is an honour to be the first guest to contemplate in this room 😊. Gazing at the beautiful mandala, I sensed the effect of being drawn close towards the centre and at the same time a brightness radiates outwards from the same centre. I reflected on the inner connectedness with my Creator as the source of the call for being the light to the outer world. Part of my deep reflection here is enriched by James Finley through his writing about his own spiritual journey in his book The Healing Path. He summarises:
When love touches suffering, the suffering turns love into mercy. And I was learning to become a merciful person by learning to be merciful toward the traumatized, fragmented aspects of myself. …the gift is God’s merciful presence, cascading down into the lowest and most broken places within ourselves and others, waiting to be seen and trusted so that it might lead us out of the darkness and into the light. (The Healing Path, pp. 144-145)
As I continue with my own healing path after these blessed days in Hummingbird Retreat, I’d like to pray that this place would become a hub of many blessings to everyone, from local or from abroad, who would take time to pause, to find rest and be refreshed.
コメント