A bit of bark, a fading barn, a day of renewal
By Phil Haslanger
Collaboration Project Story Team
Three little flames on a candle held their own against the light breeze on a sunny Friday outside Holy Wisdom monastery.
Gathered around the candle were 14 faith leaders – mostly pastors, a few lay staff – from 11 different congregations and a range of denominations. We were here for a Rest and Renewal Retreat hosted by Collaboration Project.
The flickering candles caught the spirit of the group after a year of dealing with the pandemics of COVID and racism, the disruption of congregational life and the stresses on families. All were still flickering, but it was often a struggle.
As Christina Roberts, a co-pastor at Foundry414 and a spiritual director based at Holy Wisdom, began the day, she read a line from Psalm 1 – “They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in due season, and their leaves do not wither.”
Over her shoulder was the water of Lost Lake on the Holy Wisdom property. The leaves on the trees were green, the lilacs were blooming.
A resilient flame, a nourishing body of water, the emergence of leaves and buds – it all seemed to set the stage for this day.
There were not a lot of words. A reading of the closing part of the prayer “St. Patrick’s Breastplate,” advice from Julian of Norwich: “Prayer ones the soul with God.” And then we were sent off for two hours of silence to let the land and the Spirit nourish our souls.
Later, people told of discoveries.
Chris Lanser, one of the pastors at City Church on Madison’s far east side, was walking through a pine grove when he noticed a piece of birch bark on the ground. It seemed so out of place.
Clearly, it had been carried by the wind.
He studied its beauty, its design, how everything about it served its purpose.
It reminded him that in the midst of all the demands made on his time, all the expectations he has of himself, that “God is taking care of everything.”
For Beth Schultz Byrnes, pastor at Hope Lutheran in McFarland, a decaying barn at the far edge of the property became a metaphor for our lives and the lives of congregations in this era.
She looked back a hundred years to the large trees that covered the Wisconsin landscape, tree after tree cut down to meet the demands of the population.
Yet that barn was put up with the lumber from those trees, providing shelter for animals, a living for the farmers. Now it was decaying. But, she said, the wood could be reclaimed and reused if it was not left to rot.
It could be reclaimed. It could serve a new purpose. Unless people waited too long.
The day was punctuated by the ringing bells from the church, the buzzing sounds of mowers and trimmers, the chirping of birds, the ancient sound of sandhill cranes. Heather Hayward, pastor of New Life Lutheran Church between Madison and Cottage Grove talked about the contrasts among the sounds and the reminder that “God exists in both” the buzzing motors and the bird tweets.
There was time again in the afternoon for a walk, for reading or art, for quiet conversations, for naps. And then we gathered one last time to share a bit of what the day meant.
One theme was just the joy of spending a day with people outside without masks, seeing whole faces, hearing actual laughter, having a chance for small talk with new friends.
Joel Hazenzahl, one of the pastors at Blackhawk Church, said he “felt renewed without guilt that he was getting further behind in his work.” And Sarah Bianchi, who has been a volunteer worship leader at Blackhawk, said the day was “a reminder to give myself permission to this as something essential to my well-being.”
Becca Mortenson, the director of youth and family programs at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church on Madison’s southwest side, said her experience of the day gave her new insights into what stressed families need. “I came in like a hurricane,” she said, rushing to get through the morning tasks and hurrying to get to the retreat. And then she reveled in the chances to nap during the day. “I need to remind my people that they need to rest,” she said.
Breanna Illéné, pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church near Vilas Park who is leaving there at the end of June to increase her role with the Wisconsin Council of Churches, compared her life right now – new mom, job in transition - to a cicada, emerging from one life, leaving an exoskeleton behind as she enters a new one. God, she said, “is calling me to get back in touch with my body.”
And Melesa McEwan Skoglund, an associate pastor at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Madison’s near west side, talked about remembering one of the promises of her ordination: to “nourish God’s people through the richness of God’s grace.” This was a day to recover that sense of God’s grace.
Jon Anderson, the director of Collaboration Project and host for the day, noted that this day was one in a series of opportunities the organization has been and will continue to create for pastors and other church leaders to claim that important time for themselves so they can recall God’s grace within themselves as they seek to live out their calls.
