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| At the Feliciana Retreat Center - all 8 of us together! |
This weekend I traveled to the Feliciana Retreat Center located about an hour north of Baton Rouge for the Presbytery of South Louisiana's meeting. The center is beautiful and tranquil - you don't get cell service so you are even more focused on the beautiful scenery all around you. It would be natural for me to describe what I did when I got there - I attended worship, ate meals, sat in on the Presbytery meeting, went canoeing, did archery and even climbed a rock wall. And even though all of that is so important, I want to focus on the part of this weekend that I often take for granted. The journey. The laughter, the jokes and the music that got us all there safe and sound.
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| A few shots from the car ride...Anna Leigh looks great with a pillow on her head, doesn't she? |
We all piled into the YAV van early Friday morning and hit the road. We listened to Jack Johnson and challenged Alex as she proclaimed that she knew every word. The conversation was sporadic and silly because all I can recall is laughing, a lot. As the car ride went on, Jess started to get signs of a migraine. She took medication but it didn't kick the symptoms and the rest of us YAVs tried our best to be accommodating to her needs. For me this was hard because I have never had a migraine before, so I felt helpless and tried best to gauge what Jess needed to be comfortable. We all had to bring our bedding to the retreat center, so we stacked pillows, comforters and anything else soft in between the middle row's two seats so Jess could lay down. She started crying out of thankfulness of the support she was receiving and it was truly a beautiful bonding moment.
Once we arrived, we had a lovely night and day at the center, doing various activities and left Feliciana around 4:30. Graceland was the tune that we thought would carry us home until the van started beeping at us. Passenger door ajar. Rear door ajar. Trunk ajar. We must have open and closed the doors ten times - arguing over whose door was the culprit. Turns out we are just driving a moody van because all doors were securely closed. I almost died of laughter watching my housemates open and close the doors, pull over to check the trunk and then finally deciding that the van was lying. We snapped pictures of each other (well mostly I was the one snapping pictures...hehe) and laughed most of the way home. Everyone did their own thing - Alex and Sydney read their books, Anna Leigh and I took turns playing Candy Crush on my phone, Hannah sung along to the music, Kalyn navigated and Jess drove. We were doing our separate things but the sense of togetherness and community never left the van. I would argue that we grew closer together in that journey than we did in the time spent at the center. That is a powerful thing.
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| Me, Hannah and Jess....I'm pretty sure I captured their genuine smiles perfectly! |
I think it's hard sometimes to live in the now. There is this constant pressure around us to get where you're going, always looking forward, that we forget to fully appreciate the moment we are in. I learned that canoeing is relaxing, the Presbytery of South Louisiana is full of amazing people, that I am terrible at archery and that not having cell phone service for two days is actually very refreshing - but most importantly I learned that the most important moments don't happen when you think they do. They sometimes fall between the cracks and get blended in with the fun we have at our destination. We forget to take a second to be thankful for the unglorified moments spent in a van with your housemates. The journey is sometimes the most important part of your trip and I am beginning to realize that.
Lesson from the Journey: It's not only about where you're going, but how you got there.
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