'Where have you Found God today?" -Steph Galeota

"Now the summer days are through

You pass through places

And places pass through you

But you carry them with you

On the soles of your traveling shoes"
-The Littlest Bird's, Jolie Holland

Its October I can't believe it! I am in my third month "in country" and I feel like life is flying by. (this has a lot to do with the fact that temperature wise, it still feels like August). My retreats have started up with a fury. I was extremely nervous for my first two (a teachers retreat, and a confirmation retreat) but once the wheels started turning my apprehension subsided. To walk into a room with 20 silent, mostly Maya, teachers was incredibly intimidating... for a variety of reasons including the following:

1) 90% of the teachers were older than me
2) This was my first time leading a retreat in Belize and though I had previous experience in college I was worried about imposing North American cultural norms on the group. (this is something I have become extremely sensitive to, as Americans we view our way as the only way, most times without realizing it)
3) I had a bit of a scheduling issue with a previous retreat and was very worried about anything happening in front of my boss, again. ("First mistake, no sweat, you are new"...Second... "you are an idiot." Well not really but that's how I was thinking)
4) I am a tall, white, young, unmarried man who isn't becoming a priest. I myself am an anomaly ("No I don't have children" "No I'm not married" "Not a priest" "No, not gay")

The purpose of my retreat was to examine where each teacher was in their faith journey. By doing that they can see where they would like to be. And throughout the day I introduced a variety of prayer practices that were outside of what they had experienced. For a group of people raised in an extremely orthodox Catholic upbringing I wanted to show that there is no right or wrong way to pray, and we can pray in our everyday using everything around us. We each bring what we have: our gifts, talents, imagination and use our experiences both good and bad, accept them for what they are, to reach God. Many people, including most of the Teachers, assume we have to be a certain way to be faithful. But comparing ourselves to others we ultimately fall short. But by comparing "where we think we should be" to "where we actually are" we get a better understanding of our struggles with faith resulting in a more authentic experience with the Divine (whatever that is for you).

I received a lot of positive feedback from the teachers who were blown away by the simple prayer methods I introduced, most of which were based in Ignatian Spirituality. Some of these included "Practical Prayerwalking"... walking with intention, be mindful instead of just rushing to a destination, walking slowly, purposefully using our senses to experience God in our everyday world; Making a Spiritual Life Graph and examining situations throughout your life that has brought you closer to God or turned you away from God. By reflecting on that and talking with others the teachers had a better understanding of where they were. Faith journey is not something often talked about so that in itself was new.

I was really happy to bring my experience to help enhance the spiritual experience of the Teachers. And it also felt really really good to do a job and do it well. I know for certain some of my retreats will completely flop (most of the success of a retreat comes from dialogue and interaction from the retreatants) but for now I feel good knowing I did good work. And at other times I struggle with the question "Why am I here? I merely lead these silly little retreats". So having a successful first retreat helped with my sense of purpose. (this is all I have time for now, but I wanted to leave you with how my boss Fr. Dick closes every Mass which I think is simple and wonderful )

"Let us go and Love one another and that is how we will love God"

-Matty