Unspoken Words

 Formally, it was a family reunion, however the gathering of a motley crew would not be overstating the situation. There must've been 30 or more of us, all with direct or indirect ties to a group of Mennonite immigrants who settled in the Dakotas in the 1870s - somewhat ironically, after fleeing from a village in what is now the Ukraine, partly because their pacifist views were no longer tolerated in that still troubled region.

Chronologically we stretched from those flirting with a century to those for whom 30 seemed a place beyond a far horizon. Politically we ran the gamet from left to right, with a number of "they're all crazy" and "I don't care" positions in between. 

Among us there were those for whom the "good book" was the same one Rev. Schrag preached from in the church down the road from "the home place," back in the early 19teens. Others turn to an older book's Talmudic teachings. More prosaic are those among us whose hankering for a good book anticipates the next installment of a favorite mystery series. So, we largely remain "people of the book," though precisely which book remains a bit up in the air.

What strikes me most about this gathering of cats, too unique to herd, was the consistency of the themes that arouse during "sharing times" wonderfully constructed to get us all in a circle to think about, and speak to, our individual perceptions of what was becoming meaningful to us in these few days we were sharing together. When the words often unspoken were shared.

Here we all seemed to be reading from the same book, regardless of its particular binding or dictates. Family, faith, compassion, and loving kindness. Again and again and again. In one room and among so many seemingly different people.

And then we leave. Back into the particularity of our own lives. We have gathered these last few days at The Del Schrag Retreat Center, named for a beloved member of the clan, and former director of the camp that houses his center: Tower Hill Camp. The camp's mantra which appears on the t-shirt I bought for my wife is "Out of the ordinary, Into the sacred."

Can we carry the sacred with us once we leave this very special place? The world seems to insist on crumbling around us. LA, the Middle East, the homeland of our misty past in the Ukraine, and now Minnesota. Will we pull on our ancient feet of clay and slog again through the muddy paths of disagreement and discord that we seem to have put aside within these magic boundaries?

My mother, remembered these last few days, but gone many years, when confronted with the troubles of the world would sigh and say, "If I had a magic wand, I would wave it and make this all better." We must move ahead without the benefit of a magic wand, but perhaps we have another tool equal at least to our portion of the task.

Let us exercise a little editorial privilege. Tower Hill says "From the ordinary, Into the sacred." Let us each make an honest effort to, in our own small way, "Take the sacred into the ordinary."