"Fear" and "Hope"

Date: 03 May 2010 19:20:58

Just back from a “wilderness retreat” weekend. It was a retreat in the sense of getting away from it all, with a low-key spiritual element to it. The wilderness part was certainly true, there were eight of us on this wilderness weekend and we got dropped by boat in a bay at the top end of an Island, a long walk from the nearest people. It was a beautiful spot, with views out to sea and other Islands, the sea looked an amazing blue, but I know was really cold, as I had a very brief dip.
While I enjoy camping, I am not the most adventures of campers. So this was my first experience of wild camping. I’m not a great fan of lots of the more adventures (or less adventures) sides of outdoor activities. Therefor this weekend could be described as a weekend of facing my fears. As someone commented they loved the fact that despite being scared of boats, matches, scrambling over rocks, caves and a few other things, I had looked at a weekend like this and decided yes that looks a good idea. The facing of real fears and overcoming them was good for me. We can talk about overcoming fear in lots of areas of our life. But overcoming fears in a real and tangible way, helps us to be able to look at these moments when faced with less easy to define fears, and remember that we can overcome them. On the evening of the first day we were there we did a cave meditation. Just getting there was a challenge for me, which involved walking/ scrambling over rocks round the headland. I’m very grateful to the others for getting me there! Arriving at the cave, I thought I have to do this, even though I really don’t like caves so I went in. I sat there thinking. “How can I do anything different and challenging. Maybe challenging myself in everyday life isn’t the way to go, God how am I meant to follow you when I’m scared off different things.” (there was more to my thoughts which I don’t want to go in to.) We then did a meditation based on Lazarus (John 11) when we thought about leaving the grave clothes behind. I came out feeling totally peaceful. It was what can only be described as a “God moment”, when something is said or done, that answers what is going on in your brain which others don’t know about.
Sunday evening we sat around a campfire on the beach and talked about when Peter denied Christ while stood round the fire before the crucifixion, and about the fire on the beach when Jesus meets his disciples after the resurrection. We then had permanent markers, and wrote on stones, the instructions were very unspecific which suited me. I threw “fear” in to the sea, and brought “hope” home with me.