It’s almost dark when we pull up to the retreat center, backlit by sunset, shadowed figures dragging suitcases to rooms and chalets. Kids run off in all directions, mostly away from their exasperated parents. Shouts of “Hey, friend!” echo in the lobby around fireplaces and taxidermied animals.
The ladies at the registration table greet us with big smiles and printed schedules for the weekend. I am bombarded by hugs, questions about which sessions I’m attending tomorrow, and invitations to game night later.
My boyfriend and I hold hands as we carry bags to our rooms. It’s my second time at the retreat, and his first. I’ve tried to assure him that he’s not in for a weekend of team-building exercises or fireside Kumbayas. He’s still skeptical. We laugh about it.
I’m vaguely aware of “how far I’ve come” feelings as I think back to this time last year. Ghosts of depression and heaviness seem to slide in and amongst the sunset shadows. But I know they’re an illusion, memories that linger like persistent lies, trying to convince me that the past is still present. But I know the deeper, more immediate truth:
Here, amongst my church family, gathered for a weekend of love and fellowship in the woods, I am home.
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It’s strange to remember how lonely and scared I was when I first walked into the doors of First Church. While I had a million acquaintances, I had very few people at that time who I felt like really knew me. I was wrestling with an abusive relationship with an addict, struggling to keep both his secrets and mine, shamed by betrayal and lies. At the same time, my relationship with my work was changing, and I felt called to step back from the yoga community that had been my rock for a long time. I was losing friendships quickly, and many of my most trusted loved ones lived halfway across the country. For the first time in many years, I felt profoundly lonely. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could understand where I was, let alone accept me and the very complicated life I felt trapped in. It felt like me against the world, and most days, I felt like I was losing.
Isolation is a damaging myth. It is a lie constructed from childhood messages, media convolutions, and brains exhausted by depression, anxiety, and addiction. It convinces us that we are fundamentally flawed and unworthy of love, and over time, isolation can feel soul-defining. The internalized belief that “I am alone” leads people to desperate attempts at connection and numbing, sometimes both at once, often with destructive consequences.
But isolation is exactly that: a myth. In the grand pantheon of human experience, there is someone, somewhere who can understand and relate to your experience. This is the truth that therapy, 12-step recovery, and faith communities are based on: You are not alone; you can and should be seen, known, and understood; you are deserving of joy, love, and laughter. The single beam of light of this truth can scatter the deepest depths of the darkness that comes with feeling isolated. Even a moment of feeling seen, heard, and understood can make up for many years of anything less than full connection.
I have seen no greater example of the healing power of community than in the sweet man in my life, himself still new to our wild and welcoming family. His story in recent years–the details of which are his to tell–is one of isolation, loss, addiction, and deep depression. He, like me, stepped into church by himself, not knowing if he would be accepted, rusty on how to be in relationship with people.
Little by little, I’ve watched him explore the possibilities of community. He shows up with me to Tuesday night young adult group and shares about tough childhood experiences. He comes to game nights with church friends and makes dry jokes and embraces the vulnerability of silliness. And he shares coffee with pastors and staff, telling them about the hard experiences of recent years that plunged him into darkness and accepting the affirmation and hope they offer. In recent weeks, he’s started calling our friend Rick–whom we lovingly call our Church Dad–every Wednesday, just to check in.
I know that the idea of this retreat challenges him. He’s not used to being in tight quarters with this many people for this long and worries about what will be asked of him. On Saturday morning, just before lunch, we reconvene after a full morning of content sessions. He has tears in his eyes as he reaches for a hug.
“What happened, love?” I ask.
He proceeds to recount the previous hour, a session about the work at Church of the Reconciler, which specializes in homeless ministry. Stirred by connections he is only just starting to trust, he opened up and shared with a room full of church family his experiences being homeless himself just two short years ago. He expressed his reasons for losing a place to live, the fear and anxiety of not knowing where he would spend the night, and the grace-filled encounters that kept him hopeful on nights he slept in his car. He shared the support he felt in the room and how safe he felt to slip out to the bathroom to cry when he finished sharing.
I can’t help but cry along with him as he tells me the story. I know this moment: the shakiness of exposing your most vulnerable and shame-filled places, and the relief of head nods and kind eyes as the people listening make space for your truth.
I know this moment, because I’ve had it, too. With these people, and the abundance of acceptance and kindness they so freely offer. We hold hands and nod silently at each other, no words needed to express the relief we’ve both experienced here. I can see in his tear-filled eyes how glad he is that he came.
I squeeze his hand tighter as we slip into the dining room and joining a table of friends, laughing and processing the morning’s sessions. There’s no awkwardness, no question about whether we can sit here, no trying to figure out what to talk about. Right here, with these people, we just fit.
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More magic will unravel in the next 24 hours that will remind us both how far we’ve come.
At game night in Jonathan’s cabin, I’ll laugh so hard my sides ache and feel touched when my sweet friend Blair–a transgender woman who teaches me so much about queer theology–uses my name as her character in a game of All in the Family.
On Saturday night during the main session, we’ll sit in the corner with Hanna–who’s keeping herself separate from the group due to a cold–and her daughter Juliana and talk about books, travel, and the Enneagram. We’ll try to whisper but end up talking too loudly and giggle at the looks we get from those distracted by our little peanut gallery, a community within a community.
On Sunday morning, Eden–whose pronouns are “they” and “them”–will speak about their experience spending time in community with people different than they are. They will use the pronouns “she” and “her” when talking about God, and I will feel myself challenged in ways I wasn’t expecting, fighting an old, deep-seated tug to assume God is a man, and feel simultaneously anxious and exhilarated at the permission Eden gives me to question why I ever bought into that assumption in the first place, and I’ll give thanks for a place that challenges as much as it welcomes.
Before we leave on Sunday, Hallie will try to arrange a simple group picture. It will take us 15 minutes to get a successful shot, because more and more people will run over, yelling that they want to be in it. We will laugh as we squeeze in closer and closer, trying to fit everyone in the frame. And I will meditate on this moment as a metaphor for the abundance of love in this community: there is so much that it can’t quite all fit into the allotted space, but we’ll make room anyway. Ours is a love that bursts at the seams.
And Sunday night, I will cry as I read my friends’ Facebook posts reflecting on the weekend, sharing that group picture that bursts with love. Especially my LGBTQ friends, who will write about they ways they’ve felt rejected and hurt by the church, and how they’ve found a loving, accepting, healing community. And I won’t even know what to do with my gratitude except fall to my knees and offer up a prayer of thanks for this incredibly special place.
God needs us to need each other. We are each others’ most effective reminder of the depth of God’s love, grace, and mercy. We are the reflection of Jesus’ ministry, in which he surrounded himself with people both like and unlike him loved them all equally. We are tangible reminders of our inherent never-aloneness, the recognition of which is perhaps the first and most important step to healing any spiritual wounds we might carry.
Given how much the memories of isolation still haunt me, I’m still in disbelief sometimes at how very much at home I feel now, and how big my church family is. But when I hold hands with the sweet man I met there–himself still stepping out of the shadows of recent isolation and into the light of community–I remember that, even in my continued surprise, I am not alone.
What a beautiful and moving post. I felt like I was right there with you.