Kids got picked up by my little sister on Thursday afternoon, so my 'retreat' began when I came home Thursay night. Packing, sorting, tidying.
Smiling...
so excited!
Friday:
Woke
way too early to make sure I had packed what I needed...I'd stopped packing the previous night as I realised I might have stuff to last me at least a week! :) Cleared it down to the bare minimum (and I could have managed with even less! ;)).
In the midst of packing sorting out cats and house for me going away I decided to colour my hair?! :D :D :D Well, it needed doing but perhaps not right then and there...! :)
At 10:45 I met up with L.B, A and J
(who was a surprise appearance, a happy one!) and we got ourselves and our stuff into L.B.'s car and on we went. We talked
a lot on the way up, sharing, asking questions, getting new perspective on things - a
good journey!
We stopped for lunch at
Brahehus and then stopped at
Draknyckeln in Järna for a cup of tea before the last long stretch through the horrific afternoon traffic in Stockholm. At about 6ish we finally arrived at the Swedish Quaker retreatcenter, Svartbäcken.
We were
warmly greeted by J.R. and her
lovely green pea soup and sandwiches. :)
Afterwards we sat in the Meeting room talking about what we wanted to learn and know more about during Saturday. We had LOTS of questions! :D I was very excited to find out we'd get to meet more Friends, some of whom I've been in touch with via e-mail. :) We wrapped things up about 9ish and I had a good talk with J.R. afterwards in the kitchen and I also got to have a nice chat with Alice
(Swedens newest Friend, who arrived at Svartbäcken just before 10 and was our cook for the weekend).
Some time after 10 I went to bed with William Penn
(Emilia Fogelklou's book on him). ;)
Saturday:
I had offered to help out with prepping breakfast so I was in the kitchen quite early. We'd been informed that to get a bit of a 'retreat-feeling' we'd have some meals
(for example breakfast) in silence. It was...
lovely to have that stillness at the beginning of the day... No chattering, just soft music in the background and
peace. To have
time for a beautiful and a breakfast that lacked nothing was...
fantastic.
Just after 9 we gathered in the Meeting room, which is just next to the 'dinning room'
(I will post pictures later) and we got right down to business! :D J.R. started with the 'easy' stuff, stuff that has an
actual and
one answer. For example, how the Religious Society of Friends is organised in Sweden and the world. LOTS of acronyms! :) ;) :)
FWCC:
SoA,
AS,
AWP &
EMES and
QCEA.
...and lets not to forget
FCNL,
AFSC and
QUNO...! ;)
*lol* I'm
sure I've forgotten a few of the acronyms and the Committees and Executive Secretaries and General Secretaries mentioned but I feel that I got a good grasp of how the organisation works, which was one of the main things I was interested in finding out more about.
Before lunch another Friend had arrived, making the total 4 so J.R. took advantage of the situation and did a 'interview a Friend'-game. :D We were divided into pairs and we had 10 minutes/Friend to whatever question we were eager to find an
(or four!) answers too and the result was
cool! :) :) :) There are very few set answers in Quakerism. :)
After lunch there was more talking, learning, sharing. In the midst of all of this there was short, silent, breaks and I love the
Worship Sharing we did as well as a way of letting things settle...and to hear what and how things had settled with others. :)
After our afternoon
fika-break we got to experience
Experiment with Light, which was...beyond words, yet, I'll
try and explain
my experience of it in my next post. :)
Love&Light,
