E.Y.E. Day 4

I woke up at 6:30am again for breakfast at 7:15am. I made one significant change that I should have made yesterday; I went and walked the labyrinth laying in the chapel. As you may have noticed from previous blog posts I have a bit of a thing for labyrinths, and the one in the chapel at E.Y.E. was no exception. As I walked the labyrinth at 7:45 in the morning (the earliest I've ever walked one) I began to think about how my journey to priesthood has been a lot like a walk on a labyrinth. Each obstacle I encounter is like each wobble I have while walking the labyrinth-note that I have poor balance so I wobble quite a bit-and yet I keep moving forward toward the center/goal. As I was walking I really was wishing I had remembered to bring my prayer beads with me. I also had an idea that there should be a taizé type service that involves using a labyrinth to receive communion-I don't know if this is something that is done somewhere and I just don't know about it or if perhaps I've lost my mind a smidgen. As I was concluding my walk I decided that if it was ever in my power to do so I would love to be able to start each morning with a walk on a labyrinth. I was not alone in the chapel on my journey. Although no one else was walking with me there were a few people sitting at a table in the corner silently coloring; as I was preparing to leave one of them came over to me and handed me a colored paper. He quietly informed me that he had colored it as I walked and he thought I might like to have it-I was touched.

We had another guest speaker at 9am. This is what he had to say to us. As you can see if you watch it, he was amazing and hilarious. He spoke mostly about how the youth are prophets and visionaries of the church, and the impact that young people can have if they are willing to take the risk. Here is the video of the virtual choir he shows briefly-it is beautiful and I am in love with this music now.

We met with small reflection groups after the speaker until it was time to go to lunch. We had about a third of the time as yesterday but I felt like we managed to discuss a lot. Lunch was at 11:15am and then we had free time until workshop 1 at 1:15pm. The workshop I was originally going to attend got changed to a later time so I had to find another one to attend, and I decided to attend the one the keynote speaker was hosting. We had a deep conversation about the changing world of religion, the fact that more & more people are claiming to have no religion at all, and how young people don't know what it means to be an Episcopalian. I then went to my Bishop's workshop about centering prayer. It was very fascinating because he used the story of Mary and Martha to talk about how much we need time to pray in our lives. Sometimes we are Martha and ergo are constantly working or looking for someone to blame that work isn't being done. Other times we are Mary when we find ourselves sitting at Christ's feet and just listening for what He has to say.

I volunteered at the Information Desk from 4:30-8pm where I mostly did a lot of Participation Bingo card punching and chatted with the very nice man left in charge. At 8:30pm I went in and listened to my Bishop lead a powerful Prayer Service, where he talked about tearing down walls that we don't know how to and how only Jesus can tear them down sometimes. It was very moving and in the end he had the whole theater on its feet.

Following that we had cookies/brownies and then it was time for lights out, showers, and sleep. The photos are (left) the labyrinth I walked and (below) the coloring I was given.