Other Landscapes

I have written here before about a retreat I made two weeks ago. One of my fellow retreatants recently made available photographs she had taken on that October weekend.

When I first saw this picture of hers, a picture of the old seacoast home where the retreat had taken place, it didn't register that my car was no longer in the parking lot. I had already left, heading off to Sunday lunch with a friend who had made the retreat with me.

By the time the picture was taken, the retreat house had resumed its utter independence of me and my life and my hopes and my fears.

Today at morning services I had a chance to reconnect with some of the people who had accompanied me on that retreat experience. Three people had worked particularly closely with me on organizing the talks and structure and goals of that weekend. Their company has proven playful and full of energy since that October weekend, marked by fervent commitments to meet outside our Sunday morning setting and taste one another's other lives.

There is a kind of hope there for an opening into places we had not shared when our eyes were on other landscapes.

The chance for new friends is always a welcome one.