by Jacci Turner
Her shoulders felt lighter as she made her way out of the labyrinth back onto the grass path. It was like she’d already lost the ten pounds on her list. She’d been carrying those things and they had weighed her down. She was ready to be free of them. Free. Freedom was such a great word!
She followed the dirt road down the hill and saw Stephen coming up in the opposite direction. Why was she always bumping into him when she looked her worst?
“Didn’t hear you coming!” he yelled as he got within shouting distance.
“What?” He was now two yards away and Amy stopped to chat.
“I didn’t know anyone was up here. Didn’t hear any swearing.” He grinned a Cheshire cat grin.
“Funny.” Amy’s face grew hot. She thought maybe she’d have made it out of this week without him mentioning that encounter. No such luck.
“What was that about, anyway?”
“It’s kind of embarrassing,” said Amy, kicking at the dirt road.
“Oh, you mean more embarrassing than all the crazy crap we’ve been through this week?”
She laughed. He was right about that. She took a breath and blew it out. “I got this idea from Amani. Have you met her yet?”
He nodded.
“Well, she had this ‘thirty things to do before I’m thirty’ board. So I started a list like that and when the girls took me to the bar …”
“You went to a bar?” He laughed, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t invite me!”
She laughed in relief. “Well … I may have mentioned to them that I’d never been drunk and Brooke may have put that on my list and I may have had too much to drink …”
“And that led to some strange middle-of-the-night swearing ritual?”
Amy laughed again, put her hands on her hips, and looked him in the eye. “You gonna let me tell the story or not?”
He gestured with his hand for her to go on.
She puffed out a breath. “When we were at the bar, I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to swear … There, I said it.”
It was his turn to laugh, and he laughed long and loud while she stood scowling, arms crossed. When he finally caught his breath, he gave her that cat grin again. “Man, I wish I’d been there to see that. You don’t seem the type to swear easily.”
Amy smiled. “True. It was not pretty.”
He shook his head, laughing. “Well, thanks for telling me; I’ve been wondering about it ever since.”
“Glad to ease your mind.”
He started to walk past and she said, “There’s a cool labyrinth up there.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Just past the trees.”
“Thanks. I’ll check it out. I’ll see you in group.” He walked on.
Amy shook her head as she headed down the hill to the retreat center. Middle-of-the-night swearing ritual indeed! She’d try not to repeat that tonight. Nope, she’d be more careful. She liked talking to Stephen, but it felt a little like flirting. That idea didn’t sit well in her stomach as she trudged back down the hill.
19
That night at triad, it was Stephen’s turn to share his story. He shifted in his chair, playing with the ring on his finger. “First, I’d like to say thank you to all of you for sharing your stories. It gives me courage to share mine.”
Amy wondered what his story could possibly be after all the crazy ones she’d heard this week.
“It probably won’t sound as dramatic as some of yours have been. But the truth is, I haven’t told anyone all of it, and it’s—well, it’s not a secret that’s been good for my soul.”
Hasmita nodded and Connie leaned forward. Amy crisscrossed her legs on the chair. They sat in silence, waiting.
“I mentioned that I am part of a church plant down in San Jose. Well … the pastor had an affair. He had to step down, so I’ve been filling in … Well, that’s the sanitized version. I want to tell you the truth—it was awful. I’d met him at work and he totally sold me on this plan to start the church. We started it about three years ago and it was thriving! He was like a mentor and I—I realize now that I’d put him on a pedestal. My dad died when I was eleven, and I guess I was hoping for a dad figure.”
“He broke your trust,” said Connie.
“Yeah,” agreed Stephen. “But it was more than that. He’d invited me into his family. His wife was amazing and I was like an uncle to his kids. I started to spend more time over there than with my own family. It was wonderful to be there, like I had a second home. My own family’s a little on the dysfunctional side.”
Connie laughed. “Aren’t they all.”
“I guess they are,” agreed Stephen. “I just didn’t see it at the time. Then Dan—that’s the pastor—started coming to me with this struggle he was having. He wanted me to hold him accountable. He was doing a lot of pornography.”
“As rampant in the church as out of it, I’m afraid,” said Connie.
“Yeah, but he was getting into some weird stuff.” Stephen rubbed his eyes, looking exhausted. “One night I was working late at the church and he came in weeping. He dropped to his knees and told me he’d messed up, gone on Craigslist and met a woman and had sex. He was a wreck. He felt so bad—or so I thought, anyway.”
Amy sucked in a breath and Stephen glanced at her; his eyes were tight with pain. He nodded.
Amy nodded. She could imagine the devastating effects something like that would have on an entire congregation.
“The thing is,” he continued, “he begged me not to tell, said it would ruin his family. He promised to go to counseling. He said it would hurt the church … I believed him.”
Connie shook her head knowingly. “You can’t blame yourself, Stephen. People like him are addicts; they will lie like it’s their native language.”
He nodded. “I get that now. But then I really believed him, wanted to protect Ann, his wife, and the kids. I made him promise to get help. I see now that I was just enabling him to keep lying. I asked him a couple times if he’d found a counselor, and he was really slippery, like, ‘Yeah, I called one but haven’t heard back.’ Or ‘I called one but he doesn’t take our insurance.’
“This went on for about four months, and I began to feel like a fraud around their family. I couldn’t look Ann in the eye, so I started avoiding her. Finally, he came to me again, just as broken up as before. This time he’d slept with a prostitute.”
“Oh yuck!” said Amy.
“Yep,” agreed Stephen. “I knew I had to do something but it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. He’d begged me again not to tell. Promised he’d get help. But I went to the elders and called a meeting. I felt like a traitor. It was awful.”
“But the right thing to do,” said Hasmita.
Stephen nodded. “They called him to come in and the look in his eyes was so hard to take. Like I’d betrayed him.”
“He was the betrayer,” said Connie.
“Yeah, he broke everyone’s trust,” agreed Amy.
“He was asked to step down immediately and I was asked to fill in. I hated it. I didn’t want to fill in, because I was a wreck, but I knew the church needed stability through the transition, so I said yes.
“After the first service without Dan, Ann was waiting for me in the parking lot. She said she only had one question: did I know?”
Stephen hung his head and his shoulders shook. Amy felt like her heart would break for this kind young man. He took a minute to gain his composure, wiping at his eyes. His voice was tight. “I’d known for four months! Four months. What could I say to her? If you could have seen the pain in her eyes when she walked away …”
“Oh, Stephen, I’m sorry,” said Connie. “This should not have happened to you or to Ann or the kids. It’s not fair. He was the one who hurt his wife; you were trying to help.”
Stephen nodded, sniffing, and Hasmita handed him a Kleenex. He blew his nose. “Anyway, that was four months ago. The church is limping along under my care and we are searching
for a pastor.”
“Don’t you want to be the pastor?” asked Amy.
“No, not now. I need to get my own spiritual life together. I’m thirty-two. I haven’t even been to seminary—I’m not even sure I’d want to go to one. This week has been really healing and I see that I’m totally burnt out from trying to work full-time and carry the needs of the church. I’ve decided to tell them when I get home, pastor or not, that I’m leaving in one month.”
“Wow,” said Connie. “That’s great! Way to make a boundary!”
Then Hasmita asked the question that Amy had most wanted an answer to. She gestured to his ring. “Was your wife a comfort during all of this?”
Stephen looked confused, then glanced down at the ring he was twisting on his finger. “Oh, that. Sorry, I should have told you. I was so hurt after the Dan thing I decided to wear this as a reminder to keep my eyes on Christ and not on other people. I needed the ring to remind me not to put anyone on a pedestal like that ever again. I’m not married.”
Amy felt her heart do a flip.
20
“He’s not married?” said wide-eyed Natalie from her seat at Joe’s Bar.
“Are you kidding me?” said Brooke, taking a sip of her beer.
“Nope,” said Amy, fingering her wineglass. She didn’t really like wine, so she’d ordered it so as not to repeat the experience from the last time she was here.
“Then what are you going to do?” said Brooke.
“Do?” said Amy. “I don’t know. I wasn’t planning to do anything.”
“Tom told me that they put up a Facebook group for each graduating class so we can keep in touch,” said Natalie. “You could connect with him there.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Amy. “But don’t you think if he was interested he would have mentioned that he wasn’t married before now?”
“I don’t know,” said Brooke. “If he’s like the people in my group, we’ve all had lots of things to figure out this week. But I think you should just tell him you want to stay in touch.”
“Is it wrong to want to be pursued by a guy?” asked Amy.
“Not at all,” said Natalie. “I would love to be pursued by a guy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be waiting around for a guy that wonderful to call me,” said Brooke.
“We know,” said Natalie, smiling at Amy, and they both chimed, “You have needs!” then burst out laughing.
Brooke joined in with a grin. “Well, I do! And so do you, Amy.”
“True, but you guys, I’ve learned so much this week and I have lots of things I want to work on that don’t have to do with Stephen.”
“Like?” asked Natalie.
“Well,” said Amy, sitting up, “I found a topic I’m really interested in for my thesis …”
“What?” asked Brooke.
“I want to research the resources we have in Reno to support trafficked girls—and boys too, of course.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said Natalie.
“I like it,” said Brooke. “Anything else?”
“Oh yeah, I’m going to talk to Joshua about starting a support group for other folks from the LGBTQI community who’ve been kicked out of churches. And I’m going to have Celeste as my spiritual director! Plus, I want to keep trying some of these practices we’ve learned.” The girls nodded and she added, “It’s exciting, but it’s all kind of scary.”
“Agreed,” said Natalie. “I want to try centering prayer twice a day for twenty minutes.”
“Ugh,” said Amy. “Not me, but I want to do the examen and Lectio for sure.”
“I want to take another class on the Enneagram,” said Brooke. “Hearing you talk about it”—she gestured to Amy with a chip—“makes me want to learn enough so maybe I can teach it … because … I’m ready to apply for another pastor job!”
“What?” said Natalie.
“Really?” said Amy. “That’s fantastic!”
“Yeah, I guess I’m ready. I’ve licked my wounds long enough. How about you, Natalie? Any life-changing decisions?”
“Well, I just finished my master’s degree, but I’m thinking of going to graduate school for a Ph.D.”
“What?” said Amy.
“Get out of town!” said Brooke. “That’s great. Do you want to be a professor? What topic do you want to study?”
Natalie swirled her wine. “You know, it’s funny. I never really thought about it before. But being an elementary school teacher was never my dream—it was my mom’s. I think I’d like teaching English at a Christian college or a small liberal arts school. Who knows? I need to investigate.”
“I think you’d be great,” said Amy, trying to picture the doe-eyed girl as a professor. Strangely, she could picture it. There was more to Natalie than she’d first thought.
“Thanks!” smiled Natalie.
“To the future,” said Brooke, raising her glass.
“To the future!” they echoed and clinked their glasses together.
* * *
That night, Amy was too wound up to go straight to bed. She found a bench by the lake and gazed up at the stars.
“Last time I’ll get to see you for a while, stars,” she said quietly. She didn’t really have any more words. Just sat in the warm, gentle air and let her mind drift among the stars until she was sleepy enough to head for bed. Her heart overflowed with gratefulness.
She found her way to her room, now tidy and ready for the morning. Tomorrow she’d have her last breakfast with her friends, her last yoga session, her last large group meeting, and then she’d be on a plane for home.
Crawling into bed, she rested her head on the pillow. “So much to think about,” she said as her mind slipped off into dreamland.
21
Amy sat in the large meeting room, looking around the circle of retreatants. A few were missing, like Celeste, who had to leave early and had come by at breakfast to give Amy one last hug. There were so many Amy had come to know, and yet the majority were still strangers to her. Inevitable, she guessed.
Tom stood. “We wanted to teach you one last spiritual discipline, and then we’ll have a closing exercise. Some of you need to grab a sack lunch and head to the airport; others can linger longer.” Amy desperately wished she’d made her flight later so she could linger.
“Many of you have probably used the breath prayer before. Often it uses a phrase from the passage we used for Lectio on the first day, where Jesus healed the blind man. You pray it as you breathe. For instance, ‘Jesus, Son of David. Have mercy on me.’” He showed them how to pray the first part on the inhale of breath and to exhale “Have mercy on me.”
“This kind of prayer is good for when you’re waiting in line at the DMV or the grocery store—when you need patience.” People laughed at this. “It can also keep you mindful and breathing and can be prayed anywhere. But today, I’d like to lead it a little differently. First, I want you to listen for a name that God might want to call you. Followed by an action or truth you might need from God. For instance, the first time I did this, I heard, ‘My beloved son, I love you.’ We will listen together for a few minutes. Listen to a name God might have that is fully yours. Then listen for something from God that you might need.”
He sat down and they went into silence. Amy immediately became aware that her heart rate was racing again. She tried three gut breaths to slow it, then listened. The name that came to her came quickly. “My precious Amy.” It was the name her Opa had always called her. Her throat tightened as she let the name she loved hearing fill her entire body with peace.
Tom prompted, “If you have the name, now listen for what God wants to say to you.”
Amy listened; the thought came to her: “Trust me.” Yes! That was what she needed. To trust God for everything she had learned here. To trust God for her future. To trust him for Joshua, and Stephen, and Hasmita, and Connie, Natalie and Brooke. To let go and trust God completely. She would remember this breath prayer.
She sat
in silence with fifty others, hearing as she breathed, “My precious Amy, trust me.”
A soft gong sound brought her back to the present and she opened her eyes. Felicia stood. “For our closing ceremony, we’d like you to take your lanyards and walk to the center to put them into the basket. You can keep the name tag inside if you want to. But we’d love to reuse the rest. As you drop your lanyard into the basket, tell us something you’re grateful for or something you learned that you want to take home from this retreat.” She sat down.
The group waited as if holding its breath. Finally, Natalie jumped to her feet, walked to the center, and plopped her lanyard in the basket. “I think I learned that you can make new friends anywhere. When I came, I was feeling insecure, but then I met Brooke and Amy at breakfast the first day, and we just clicked. I’m grateful for that. It helped to have someone to process with.”
Amy was surprised to learn that Brooke and Natalie had met each other that first morning when she met them. She’d assumed they were already friends. What would she like to share? Stephen was up, dropping his lanyard. “The triad was really helpful for me. I have trouble trusting people, especially after a rough year. And … they were really patient with me.” He nodded and stepped back to his seat.
Others came and went and Amy still didn’t know what she wanted to share. How could she boil all the things she’d learned into one or two sentences?
Brooke approached the basket. “Long story short but … I think I’m ready to apply for a new pastoral position. It took some work to get there. I had a lot of crap to work through. And I want to thank you for creating space for that.” People laughed.
Amy smiled. She would miss Brooke.
A few more people shared; their comments were as varied as the people themselves. But obviously, God had been at work. “We only have time for one or two more,” said Tom. “If you have a burning desire to share, do it now.”
