A Final Retreat

It’s April—which is a significant fact because that means May (the month of my college graduation) is next month! The month is very busy even after graduation. The same day I graduate, I’ll be heading to camp with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in New York for a few days of reading the Bible and focusing on God. Then I’ll be home for a day or two before I head off for a Disney World vacation with a group of my senior friends. Again, I’ll come home for about a day or two before heading off for a job at summer camp. Life is certainly going forward at full-speed.

It’s nice, in all this forward motion, to get some time to relax and reflect. On the weekend of March 21^st to the 23^rd, I was able to do just that through Susquehanna’s Christian Fellowship Retreat at Mountain Dale Farm. Every semester, Susquehanna’s Deacon of Spiritual Nurture organizes a retreat for students. I have been attending these retreats since my freshman year and have valued the time to escape campus for a while, bond with other students, and grow spiritually.

This semester, we reflected on what it means to be spiritually awake or spiritually asleep. Being “spiritually asleep” might mean only going through the motions of your faith or generally being apathetic. To me, being awake means being an active participant in one’s relationship with God. I personally felt woken up by the weekend. I had been more engaged in reading my Bible there than I had been for quite some time, which was an awesome feeling.

Though the retreat was great, it was definitely bittersweet. I’ve become attached to the drive there through middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, to Mountain Dale Farm, to the deer heads mounted on the walls and the mismatched couches in the room place we call “The Room of Death,” to candles in a cross formation in the middle of the floor during worship, to games like Catchphrase, to intimidating geese, to lazily sprawling out on the couches during free time, to talking through life with a prayer partner, and most of all, to the great people that come each semester. The last night of the retreat was one of those times where graduating really hit me. It was the last of something important to my college experience—and I knew a lot more lasts were on their way.

That night, the senior girls all decided to sleep over on the couches in the “Room of Death” instead of going to our cabin. When I was an underclassman and not all the girls could fit in the  cabin, upperclassmen girls often ended up sleeping over in that room. None of us had ever done it, so we took our chance. I don’t think any of us got great sleep, but it was worth it for that memory that felt so college—a bunch of girls sprawled out on couches pushed into a circle, chatting and reminiscing in the dark as we curled up underneath our blankets and sleeping bags.  

My friends and I hope to go back to Mountain Dale one day for a reunion of sorts, but if that never comes to fruition, I had a great final retreat that I’d be happy to call my last Mountain Dale memory.

Fall Conference!

Friday afternoon, I headed out to InterVarsity Fall Conference. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is not merely an organization on this campus but is represented on campuses across the country. Fall Conferences provide a chance for students from different campuses to get together. At our conference, 10 colleges were represented, with decent numbers of students from schools like Albright, Alvernia, Bloomsburg, Bucknell, and Lehigh. The conference, which took place in the Poconos, provided plenty of free time for hanging out with friends as well as speakers, worship, and quiet time.

While I love the Susquehanna campus, I really do love these times when I can break from my usual routine and escape off-campus. It's a great opportunity to be away from stressors at school. In fact, I brought no homework at all with me on this trip, since I knew I wouldn't get to it. Of course, reality comes crashing back in very quickly--like finding out you've overslept Monday morning, for instance.

I wish it could've gone on longer, but I hope that it has ramifications on my semester as it continues. One thing I hope to do, particularly, is to deepen my friendships and fellowship with people from IV.

I am so grateful that I began attending this group first semester. It's been so formative to my college life and has given me so many memorable experiences that I would not have had otherwise. I advise all college students to join an organization they're passionate about as early as they can! I'm excited for the rest of the time I'll be having with IV throughout the year and through my next years here at SU, and though I may not get to go on Fall Conference next year, due to study abroad, I definitely want to go my senior year!

Religious Life Council's Fall Retreat

On Friday, I left for this year's Religious Life Council Christian Fellowship Retreat. This was my third RLC  retreat so far, and I hope to go to one each semester, besides my semester abroad. Our group, I think around 25 of us, gathered at the chapel with blankets, pillows, and bags. After approximately 45 minutes in a school bus, we reached Mountain Dale Farms. It's a great location, though it was too rainy for us to enjoy nature as much as most of us would've liked. Last year, all of the girls stayed in one cabin, but because so many people went this year, a group of us girls slept in a different cabin. This cabin had a really cool loft, where many of the girls slept, but I stuck to one of the bunk beds on the ground. Unfortunately, I've had a cold, and I didn't want it spread by sleeping in such close quarters!

In fact, I got so sick that I practically lost my voice over the weekend. This was a major pain but I didn't let it ruin my retreat experience.

Friday night was mostly spent hanging out and playing games in "The Room of Death," the meeting area with comfy couches and chairs and many mounted animal heads. As groups, we played the knot game, which is when people stand in a circle and grab hands so everyone is tangled; then, the group has to work to free itself from the knot. My group was very unsuccessful--we didn't unknot ourselves once! I also played a game of Pictionary Down the Lane that night, which is pictionary mixed with the game Telephone. To begin, someone writes a sentence. The person that gets the sentence has to do a drawing of it. The next person then, without looking at the previous sentence, has to compose a sentence about the drawing. Everything gets wonderfully convuluted! On Saturday, I also had plenty of time to sit and talk with people, as well as play card games and 20 questions.

Of course, the retreat also had a spiritual focus. Susquehanna's Deacon of Spiritual Nurture, a senior religion major, led our group in sessions about heaven and the concept of heaven on earth. These sessions incorporated Bible study and discussion. For some, we listened to and reflected on songs about heaven. During one session, all of us got a chance to bust out our artistic skills and draw our childhood picture of heaven--it was very hard for me to decide on God's clothing and hairstyle! Saturday night, our structured activities ended with worship and prayer. I was a bit sad that, because of my cold, I couldn't sing along to the worship songs. My favorite part of worship was seeing the skits our different groups made about the Scripture readings. My group updated a parable about a servant inviting guests to his master's great feast to a butler inviting guests to his master's luau! The skits, in all, were very creative.

It was very nice to step away from campus and my routines; I wish I could've been gone longer! Luckily, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Fall Conference is coming up this month as well, giving me plenty of chances to get away.

Stress!

The life of a college student can get pretty hectic. I knew that was true before, but it's really sinking in now.  Last semester I set a goal of becoming more involved in the Spring--and you could say I'm attaining it.  I'm a pledge of Alpha Phi Omega and am now a reading board member for SU's literary magazine RiverCraft.  Additionally, I still want to stay involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which, for me, might mean attending prayer group on Monday, "life group" or Bible study on Wednesday, and a large worship gathering on Thursday.  Oh yeah, and there's also schoolwork.  And work work.  And friendship.  And life. 

I'm already beginning to worry that I've put a bit too much on my plate, even if I'm not completely consumed by stress just yet.  Rather, I have that weighty sort of sensing-impending-doom type of stress.  I'm not immersed in all these activities yet and am very much at the beginning of some processes, but there's still a worry that I can't juggle everything and I'll have to drop a ball--and if I have to drop a ball, which one?

This all sounds a little dramatic, I'm sure.

And to be fair, I am a bit of a dramatic being.

The truth is, all my issues are typical.  My friends are dealing with similar stress right now and wondering how they'll make things work.  The thing is, a lot of people have made it work before us.  They've done as much, if not more, and made it to the other side.  And some did more than make it.  Some have heaped many things on their plate and excelled.  And sure, others may have been juggling too much and had to set some things aside, but you know what?  They made it too, in their own way.  They did what they needed to do to continue.

It'll be alright.

Being busy, after all, isn't the same as being important.  High GPAs and impressive resumes are nice, but they don't equate to fulfillment or meaning or happiness.  And failing in any aspect that I hope to juggle could be dissapointing, but it wouldn't be earth-shattering. Unless I let it be.     

This upcoming weekend, the Religious Life Council is hosting a Spring Retreat, which means escaping off-campus.  The more stressed I get, the more I am looking forward to this weekend as an opportunity to relax, get away, and be with God and people.  Hopefully it will reinforce the prior paragraph in my mind and heart, and I can carry some calm back with me to SU.

Making it to Fall Break



Me in a
lovely Susquehanna
 sweatshirt
at the retreat

Before and even at college, I’ve heard this advice for freshmen: “Don’t go home until fall break.”   I’ve followed this advice, and now I’m eagerly looking forward to tomorrow, when I’ll be on my way home for the first time since my parents dropped me off August 26^th.

Orientation was inevitably awkward, but soon the third floor of my residence hall Hassinger (affectionately known as “Hass”) provided me with great friends.  At Susquehanna I’ve already had many late nights of giggling and talking—and as many late nights trying to finish homework.  I’ve written my first college paper and survived my first nail-biting exam.   I’ve raved at the club on campus, TRAX.  I’ve had my words workshopped by my peers in Tom Bailey’s Intro to Fiction class.  I’ve started my assistantship in Advancement Communications, which has meant writing articles, interviewing professors, doing research, and starting this blog.  And I’ve gotten involved, going to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Lutheran Student Movement, and even a Religious Life retreat at Mountain Dale Farms that allowed me a weekend off campus and one of the best views of the stars I've ever had.

Up until this weekend I viewed Fall Break with a certain amount of apprehension.  Home is home, and I love it, truly, but it’s so different from here.  A friend of mine compared college to a constant sleepover where you have to do homework.   So far, I agree.  There’s always that world waiting right outside your dorm room door.  At home, I open my bedroom door to a usually empty hallway with some laundry machines.  Not exactly as thrilling.

I’ve come to realize, though, that a break from the constant whirl of people will be a welcome refresher.  I look forward to spending time with my parents, meeting up with friends from high school, and catching up on all the TV I miss now that I actually have a life.  I want to be relaxed and renewed when I return to campus on Tuesday.   My shock at actually being in college is starting to wear off, and now I’m thrown into the reality of the situation.  Now I’m thrown into making that reality the best it can be.

I am finally excited about Fall Break.  In fact, I'm depending on it. 

That long Winter Break, however...