{"id":24,"date":"2005-05-20T16:23:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-20T16:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianmashburn.net\/?p=24"},"modified":"2005-05-20T16:23:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-20T16:23:00","slug":"the-retreat-chronicles-ii-rules-of-participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"The Retreat Chronicles II – Rules of Participation"},"content":{"rendered":"
“Do you understand what I have done for you?” — Jesus, to his followers<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
I admit it…I pretty much can’t do anything without checking out Jesus’ life and seeing if he’s already done it for me to use as a model. <\/span><\/font>So, in the final days of prep for this retreat, I went straight to John’s record of Jesus’ final retreat with his followers. After all, what were we, if not a group of Jesus’ follower’s meeting with Jesus?<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
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Did I tell you that the retreat was at a place called Ceta Canyon? Absolutely beautiful, but my nervous focus on my role all weekend made me miss enjoying it fully. Before we went there, we stopped at Feldman’s Wrong-Way Cafe’<\/em> in Canyon, TX, where we had a big table reserved in the back room (a “last supper” of sorts?). This is where I laid out the focus on Jesus, the Retreat Objectives (see last post), and then charted “The Journey In” towards experiencing Objective #1. A guy named Scott Peck says that the journey into true community passes through 4 stages — something like this…<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
Pseudo-community<\/em> – where politeness and niceness reign, boundaries and comfort zones are honored<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
Chaos<\/em> – where emotional skeletons come out of the closet to play (this is where most efforts stop)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
Reflection<\/em> <\/strong>– a time of transition to a radical level of openness and realness<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
True Community<\/em> – where the capacity for ‘relatedness’ and ‘safety’ reign and is given and enjoyed<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
And so we continued our combined effort out at Ceta Canyon by agreeing to the following “Agreements\/Assumptions” with each other for the day…<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
1. You are here by divine appointment<\/strong>. (meaning you are needed, and you need us)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
2. You are a participant<\/strong> (so be self-responsible enough to include yourself)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
3. You are not the only participant<\/strong> (so include yourself in a way that draws others out)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
4. You are safe<\/strong> (who shepherd’s the shepherd’s? The shepherd’s shepherd each other)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
5. Stay in the conversation when it gets difficult<\/strong> (conflict is ‘fuel’ for true community when love reigns)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
6. Invite people back when the ‘leave’<\/strong> (and ‘leaving’ doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the room)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
Lots of head nodding went on in that room along with several blank stares. All of this particular group had general agreement that true community is an ideal we would shoot for, and have experienced it at different levels and at different times, but still, nerves were a little high…but so was courage.<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
We continued by meditating on Jesus’ question for us if we were to venture one step deeper into our relationships with each other or with God…”Do you understand what I have done for you?”<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
It’s a meditation worthy of your pause and asking right now. Understanding what Jesus has done for you, it’s width and breadth, it’s depth and height, is the absolute trump card for anything that keeps a human being from true community.<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
I know that my son doesn’t understand what I have done for him when I do something as simple as play with him. I’m sure that my daughter doesn’t understand what I am doing for her when I send her a postcard when I’m out of town. I’m sure my son doesn’t understand what I have done for him when I bow to God beside his crib, begging God’s blessing on him. And these are relatively simple acts compared to what Jesus has done for me.<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
Do you understand what Jesus has done for you? Do you? If you do, people will recognize you when they see you. You are the one who lives out these “rules of participation” every day with peace and joy. Not some self-affirming trumped up version of it, mind you (like “I’m very blunt. I tell everyone what I think all the time.”), but a real presence that invites the best out of the other person with little regard for what it costs you to help them do so. <\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
Sort of like what Jesus has done for you.<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n
<\/span><\/font> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Do you understand what I have done for you?” — Jesus, to his followers   I admit it…I pretty much can’t do anything without checking out Jesus’ life and seeing if he’s already done it for me to use as a model. So, in the final days of prep for this retreat, I went straight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}