I returned Sunday from eight days in Santa Fe, New Mexico spent at an artists conference for people of faith, called The Glen. The pueblo style architecture of St. John's College, where the Glen is held, adds a wonderful ambience to this annual event. Also a lovely lily pond replete with a water fall and orange, yellow and white carp gave me refuge. Eleven different workshops in the visual arts and writing were offered to participants of many ages and locations,
Last Monday my fellow fifteen writing students sat down at large table. We glanced around, wondering who was who. Could any of these smiling people have gone crazy-mad after husband and baby both died in one weeks time? Who had been a reporter for the SF Chronicle was and had moved from atheism to a commitment to God? Which attractive young woman had a class-mate she didn't know come up to her in a bar to ask her to marry him?
Stories--we all have them, but in this special group we'd read them before showing up for this"spiritual writing class" at the Glen.
Our teacher, Lauren Winner, is a professor at Duke, a historian and author of three published books and numerous essays. I'd read her memoir, GIRL MEETS GOD, some five years ago. When I saw she was teaching this year for at the Glen, I was excited. I thought she'd be a brilliant teacher since she's a brilliant writer, and she was.
Another favorite author of mine, Marilyn Nelson, poet extraordinaire, was also teaching. I wished I could clone myself so as to take two workshops, but at least I was able to enjoy hearing her read her poems. Many of her pieces are narrative stories of Afro-Americans, some slaves, some freed men like George Washington Carver. So hearing her dramatize her work with a southern black accent was captivating.
"I'd read Marilyn's poems before and they didn't connect to me, but hearing them was a totally different thing. I loved it," said the woman next to me in the audience.
When I entered the Glen, none of my classmates knew me, other than the words I'd written. Those fourteen pages were a very personal account of how I've needed to grow and change to support my daughter becoming her own independent person. I confessed ways my orientation towards my self and lack of sensitivity to her has damaged our relationship.
Walking into a group where they knew bad parts of me, without first coming to know and respect me, scared me. But it was worth the risk. A classmate who prayed with me afterwards gave me this message from God, "He's smiling at you. He's proud of the new steps you've taken."
All in all a good week, a very good week.
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