GSV Simplicity Retreat: Just Love, Just Be

Who are you, at your most simple core? How do you experience the world around you? What implications will that carry for the way you experience your life?

I am lying awake in a wooden bunk bed. I can stretch my toes to the end, I can hear a four person chorus of breathing around me with a snore here or there. I can see the moonlight: calm, white, and stretching across the tiled floor, our resting bodies. Perfectly we lay, without intent or the usual bombardment of conscious thoughts, just being. Beyond the window the moon presides over the rolling and beautiful campus of Collier High School, and in the rooms down the hall 15 other bodies sleep. This is the first night of the GSV Simplicity and Social Justice Retreat, though it feels more like a giant slumber party (except unlike sleepovers of childhood, we watch social justice themed movies and snuggle under covers while we discuss the challenges of our volunteer placements). By the end of the weekend I will be contemplating a bit more than childhood memories involving bunk beds, though both could be defined by the simple joys of being open to experiencing.

Before I get into this retreat specifically, allow me to explain what one might expect during a GSV retreat. Retreats are about a weekend in length and include all the volunteers in New York and New Jersey. Usually nestled somewhere in nature at a retreat center, or in this case, a cabin, we spend the weekend focusing on one of the GSV tenets. Occasionally there are speakers and opportunities for reflection in solitude and group wide discussion. We share meals, sometimes taking turns preparing them for one another. We participate in a daily prayer activity, and although these spiritual activities may look different from retreat to retreat, they are inclusive to all regardless of faith practice or belief. Though mainly facilitated by our program directors, the retreats are very much shaped by all those who participate: volunteers, Good Shepherd Sisters, and presenters alike.

The sun has risen and you have about 18 GSVs huddled in a large room, cradling cups of coffee and tea in their hands. What happens next? As mentioned previously, our retreat focused on the tenets of Simplicity and Social Justice. Each of our three speakers approached these topics from different perspectives: Paul, who spoke of simplicity as it relates to our core values, Michael, who spoke to us on simplicity as a way of embodying and experiencing life, and Sr. Helene, who presented us with some of her findings from conducting interviews and research with women who are survivors of sex trafficking. (Though my one sentence didn’t accurately encapsulate the extent of Sr. Helene’s research, you should know that the Sisters of the Good Shepherd are incredible and greatly involved in working against this issue. In my opinion, they are rock stars of social justice.) What resonated from each of them for me personally were those same questions: who are you at your most simple core? What are your core values? Sitting with these questions, I realize the potential effect exploring their answers would have on my spirituality and understanding of social justice, even the way I love, serve, and be with other people

As we sat there, in the middle of the woods amidst snow, I was hooked by what our speakers were saying. It was such a subtle shift, so simple (couldn’t help throwing that in there). Something that really resonated with me came from a prayer activity we did involving the reading of and reflecting on stories. In one, a fish is swimming around and around asking everyone where to find this great, beautiful ocean. Finally, someone just says to him, “Hey dude. Stop searching and just look.” Coming into this year, I “knew” what social justice was because I made that a focus of my life at college. And to ensure simplicity, I was given a stipend. There are only so many options when you make $200 a month. Though believe me, if seven girls sharing the 3rd floor of an old high school can organize a functioning community grocery budget and live quite happily in NY on very little any one can! That’s a part of it too. But what about the other part? The emotional, spiritual, ideological, embodied sense of living simply, of being open to and aware of social justice?

I was particularly struck by Paul asking us: “What are your core values? Who are you at your most simple core?” Later, Michael to us about simplicity in an experiential way, of emotional attachments and definitions; things that tend to encumber a truly present and authentic experience of what is around us every minute. These two ideas are tied together. If I can identify at my deepest core what I value, even if that is just to be awake to each intricate detail of creation around me-- that changes how I experience my life. Maybe my core values relate to honoring my own dignity and honoring the dignity within others-- that might lead me to devote more of myself to activities or career that work toward restoring the dignity of people who experience injustice. And maybe all of that gets tied up into emotional attachments, definitions of shoulds and should nots. But it looks different for all of us, and that’s okay. Stop searching; stop trying to be any one thing, and just look. Just be. As we like to say in the Astoria community, be who you are; no one can do it better than you.

Retreats are an invitation to explore yourself and to explore life. It is never confined to a single weekend here or there, never limited to “that one year of your life you spent working at a shelter in New York City”. As a speaker pointed out to us, your volunteer life is life. It becomes your “real” life after (and who knows what “real” life is anyways, right?). If you are reading this blog because you are interested in becoming a GSV, you may already have your own ideas about what each of the tenets mean. You may be joining because of them, you may not. Regardless, the volunteer year and GSV retreats provide the space to explore not only the tenets, but life. One fellow volunteer mentioned something to the effect of “It’s not what I get rid of, but what I allow in.” The stipend does mean less money, less focus on the material, but ideologically it holds a lot of weight as well. Maybe making space by simplifying in our lives, whatever that means for each of us, would allow us to experience life in a different way. Possibly a more full way. Maybe the lack of clutter in our heads and hearts would allow us the space to attend to what matters to us at our core. As the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has said, God is in the now; peace and life are in the now. However you perceive God or the world, it’s a truth that the world, life, is right here available to us, always—if only we can be here in the moment with it, to experience it unadulterated by our bombardment of thoughts and judgments.

By the end of the weekend, it looked like our retreat reflected our most basic value as GSVs: just love. Spending rare quality time together as a large group, finding joy in just simply being with one another. Becoming a volunteer can include a lot of experiences on the job, in community, and on retreats. You could find yourself looking at things a little differently, while also finding yourself amidst the kind of people that will both support and challenge you. You might find yourself in a cabin, in the woods; awake in the middle of the night, scribbling away about your life has been changed. With a couple stink bugs. (Did I forget to mention the stink bugs?) Regardless the scenario or players, stink bugs or not. There is a simple joy to be had in awareness-- of being, perfectly as you are, wherever you may be. No need to search, just look.

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Alaina

Astoria Community