What makes us unique? What do we share?
These were the two questions Jane Huber set before 45 women on Saturday, January 30th during the Annual Women’s Retreat. This year, the theme was “On Common Ground.” Had super storm Jonas not come through, it would have been the weekend after the Church’s Anti-Human Trafficking event however, instead it almost divinely preceded the current challenge to our congregation.
To be honest, I’ve been struggling with my experience of the retreat, to no fault of Jane or any participant, but I think because I came in with too much of an ego mindset. I was identifying more with what I’d get out of it, rather than being open to what would happen. I was also therefore identifying with whether or not other people would enjoy it. That anxiety got translated into, “what did I get from it? What did others? And where would it lead me/them?”
Throughout the weekend, I found myself wondering: did I learn more about how to find Common Ground? If so, what did I learn? If not, does that mean I didn’t get the benefit of Jane’s amazingly well thought-out program?
In the first part of the morning, Jane had us look at a passage from Acts 17:22-31 in which Paul is able to get the attention of the Athenians and explain the concept of his God versus theirs. She asked us to look at where we saw Paul establishing common ground and who, or what, is Paul’s God. The passage ends with him using the words of the Athenians’ own poets to explain his concept of his (and our) God saying, “For ‘In him we live and move and have our being…For we too are his offspring.’” In other words, God is in each of us, not in a shrine.
In Tom’s sermon the next day, just before the anti-trafficking event, he explained: “the core of our faith is to love God and our neighbors as we love ourselves. It’s not that we are to think poorly of ourselves, but that we are to think of others, and want for them the best out of life, just as we seek that for ourselves. In other words, true prophecy is characterized by being propelled as much for the love of others, as by the love of self.”
Taken together, this is a powerful new notion of God that I now have as a result of this retreat. I have already been learning that if God is in each of us, then knowing my uniqueness is a way of knowing God. But what I got from Jane on Saturday was that if knowing my uniqueness allows me to know what you and I share, then it is a compassionate way of learning how to love you and want for you, as I love and want for myself. And if I can get myself there, then I have expanded my visceral knowing of God. I imagine this is what it feels like as a parent, that your identity increases in each child. As your identify increases, so too does your connection.
As I find more common ground with others, can my connection to God increase?
