Road Trip

So this past weekend was our road trip to Ohio Wesleyan to attend the Radical Gospel Living: Monasticism Today conference. It was quite the experience, to say the least. Alyssa and I tagged along to sell Sister Joan Chittister's books at a table at the event.

It was a great treat to see Sister Joan speak on Friday night.  She talked about monasticism and how it is changing to meet the needs of our world today. The only monastic experience out there isn't just the traditional way. There are intentional communities of lay people out there who live out monastic values just the same as this community does. The Monasteries of the Heart movement is about this idea that everyone of us may have a monastic vocation, but desire to live it out in a new way, in a world that is ever changing. Her talk was intense, funny, and eye-opening. After Sister Joan's talk, Alyssa and I had to run back to our table to get ready for the wave of people that wanted to buy books and have them signed. We rounded out our long day of travel and made it back to our hotel well after 10pm.

Saturday was yet another busy day. The conference started with a prayer service at 8:30, followed by several break-out sessions. Alyssa and I manned the table, all morning and into the afternoon. We were able to talk with Sisters from a handful of other Benedictine communities, and with many people attending the conference who had a lot of questions for the two young girls working at Sister Joan's book table.

The second keynote speaker was Shane Claiborne from The Simple Way community in Philadelphia. He and Joan were delivering the same message, but in different styles, and with slightly different slants on the same topic. Again, his talk was very thought provoking, and very entertaining and inspiring. It's all about the simple things each of us can do, especially my generation, to change the world and keep monastic values alive and thriving.

We traveled there and back with a couple of Sisters who were absolutely wonderful to spend time with. We carried on all weekend and had a blast. Nothing like a long car ride to bring out the crazy stories, and endless laughs.

So it was a very good, but extremely tiring weekend. Sunday was much needed to relax and rest up before work began again yesterday. I was happy to see everyone at SBEC and the Kid's Cafe yesterday. One of my girls at the Cafe evidently missed me a lot last week, she asked first thing when she walked in yesterday if I was back yet. It was wonderful to see her smile and to get a huge hug when I snuck up behind her, she made my day :)