Laity Lodge-Kindred Spirits

This is the third post of a four part series on my experience at the writer's retreat at Laity Lodge. Click on these links to read the other posts:


Part 1
Part 2
Part 4

In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes about deep friendships that are between kindred spirits. These are people who have more in common than merely convenience or living in close proximity to one another. These are people who see and care about the same truths. At the Laity Lodge Writer's Retreat, the rooms were full of kindred spirits. These were people who are writers, with a deep belief in their God. Many are book authors. Most are bloggers, and some attended in anticipation of beginning to write.

I walked up to a group of writers at the meet-and-greet when immediately I heard a lady say, “Oh, you’re the one who won the contest!” She had read my nametag. I sheepishly smiled as some of the others turned to stare. I was meeting all of them for the first time. Many of them already knew one another. They had met at the retreat last year. Many others had been corresponding on the internet and knew each other but were meeting in person for the first time.

I went to get refreshments and people were introducing themselves. Arriving with my own preconceived notions about  people from seeing their pictures on The High Calling website, meeting them in person was quite a surprise. I expected L.L. Barkat to be ten feet tall. She is an accomplished writer, teacher, editor, publisher, wife and mother. So, when a very petite feminine lady walked up to me and introduced herself, I politely said hello. Then, my brain processed who she said that she was and I couldn’t speak for shock. She was ten feet tall in accomplishments and character only.

We had dinner in a dining room with long wooden tables, more like the kind that you would have in a family dining room rather than at a retreat center. I was amazed that the conversation never seemed to wane. There was none of the nervous first conversations that are usually encountered at retreats among people who were meeting for the first time. Not even among the newbies like me. I guess that is because most everyone there was a writer and we writers love to express. Express we did, all weekend.

When we weren't expressing, we were chillaxing; or clowning; or meditating. 

Some were autographing books.

We came in all ages, shapes and sizes to meet one another, learn a little about our craft, and fellowship. We, the kindred spirits, so thankful to be with each other, drinking in the beauty of understanding, left with the gift of richer, deeper kinships and wonderful memories for a lifetime.

Amen.
To read the next article in this series about Laity Lodge, go here.


Joining with Laura Boggess at The Wellspring and L.L. Barkat at Seedlings in Stone.



















copyright 2011 by Kathy Robbins

My Rich Association With The High Calling

Serendipity is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for;” I had such an experience four months ago.

Late one night, as I was searching the internet looking for ways to increase my blog traffic, I landed on an online magazine website named “The High Calling”. On first inspection, the site looked good. I found a devotional that I liked that was written by Dr. Mark D. Roberts. I subscribed to the devotional so that I could receive it daily via email. To do this, I registered on the site. Beginning the next day, I received the devotional. I shared one with my prayer group. I added one to my blog with permission from Mark. Sometimes I email him with comments. These are well written, thoughtful devotionals that touch my heart.

About eight weeks later, I received an announcement about a contest for a free slot at a writer’s retreat at Laity Lodge. I entered and won. Once I was notified that I had won, I visited the site to really dig in and find out more about The High Calling (THC) and this place called Laity Lodge (LL).

This is what I found. LL is a structure on property in the Texas Hill Country that was purchased and developed to be a beautiful, peaceful retreat site by Mary and Howard Butt, Sr., the founders of the Foundation for Laity Renewal, and owner of the property and camps in Leakey, Texas, just west of Kerrville, Texas. Howard Butt, Sr. began HEB grocery. In addition to LL, several foundation camps are located on the same 1900 acre property.

THC is the website representing LL. One of the hallmark characteristics of LL is hospitality. This is a retreat facility where you are treated like family. THC tries to attain the same goal. They treat their internet partners like family.

This is how. THC magazine has a place to register. In addition to the theme of hospitality, one of the other main themes is combining spirituality with one’s vocation. This is a unique combination, because in our world, the spiritual is usually at odds with one’s vocation, unless one chooses a spiritual vocation. I have found this to be true in my life.

THC features articles in five different subject areas: faith, family, attitude, culture and work. These articles are written by the editors and members of this site. Membership is comprised of writers, many of whom are bloggers. Upon site registration, a member profile is completed, including a blog url and website feed. The site then captures the posts of the member’s website and pulls it to the magazine for the readership, who are then directed to the individual’s blog.

The Welcome Editor, Cheryl Smith, usually contacts new registrants via email, and invites them to write a post about their association with THC and the uniqueness of this partnership.

Certain writers are featured based on criteria established by THC. In addition to the featured articles, blog posts and devotional, the Special Projects Editor, Laura Boggess, leads an online book club with articles on Mondays.

My favorite feature is the community post, in which a particular topic is selected by a team of editors and the members are invited to write about that particular topic and then link back to the post. I have done this. The first that I did was about laughter. I linked my article entitled "Childhood Friends: Laughing Our Way Through Life" to Diedre Riggs’ site at Jumping Tandem.net. This was fun to write and I also got to read a lot of other cool posts by the other writers as well. The second one that I joined was entitled, “Willie Mae”. This was my attempt to join with other writers to paint a portrait of someone from my past. I joined this at Jennifer Dukes Lee’s site at Getting Down With Jesus. This too, was fun.

The thing that I like about the community links is having a chance to fulfill a writing assignment without the stress of school. In school, if you opted out of an assignment, you received an ‘F’, had to worry about your GPA, your future career, wasting your parents money, etc. Here, if you want to participate, you do. If not, you don’t. It is that simple. Choice begets freedom.

I think back to the night that I ran upon this site by accident. I don’t think that it was by accident at all. I didn’t just join a website. I gained a new group of friends and joined a whole new community.

Amen.






copyright 2011 by Kathy Robbins

Willie Mae

I could have been one of the children in the novel, The Help. Like the children in that novel, I was raised in the deep south in a family that had maids. This was the norm for the early 60’s. And like the children in that novel, I developed a close relationship with some of these women.

The first one that I remember was named Willie Mae. I never knew the last name of this short, energetic, older woman. Her deep black skin contrasted with the light colored dresses that covered her small frame.

Willie Mae came to the house every weekday while my parents worked. She kept the house clean, babysat the three of us kids, had supper cooked when my mom arrived home. My mother loved Willie Mae because all of her hard work made my mom‘s life much easier.

She was a godly woman who never learned to read. My older sister, Maresa, would exploit her illiteracy by having the three of us children to sit atop the kitchen counter. Then Maresa would pass out saccharin to us and tell Willie Mae that she was giving us aspirin. She swore up and down that Willie Mae would believe her because she couldn’t read. But I always thought that Willie Mae was playing my sister. Just because she couldn’t read didn’t mean she was dumb. What southern woman didn’t know what saccharin was? But Willie Mae acted as if she believed that we were eating aspirin, and she would pitch a fit. That made my sister feel really smart. I think that Willie Mae knew the truth all along.

One morning my mother received a telephone call from the Chief of Police in our small town. He was calling to let my mother know that Willie Mae would not be coming in to work that day. It seems that Willie Mae’s husband had shot and killed her. They said that he “wasn’t quite right.” I think that he had some senility that had set in. With the blast of his shotgun, we lost our Willie Mae.


This post was written as part of a Community Writing Project entitled Word Portraits over at The High Calling. I am linking to Jennifer Lee's article about her Aunt Gladys at her blog Getting Down With Jesus.

copyright 2011 by Kathy Robbins

Childhood Friends: Laughing Our Way Through Life

Cindy

I read a blog post written by Deidra over at The High Calling. She wrote about laughter. She suggested that the rest of us write our own stories about the same topic. Here is mine. Happy Reading!

Cindy and I are the products of an Alabama small town. We met as babies in a playpen. Our mothers plopped us down together to play as they visited. We really didn’t have much choice in the matter. We were just there together, kind of like siblings.

Kathy being silly at work

Nourishment provided by our families and each other, mixed with sunshine, clean air and a little rain helped our friendship to blossom over the years. I don’t know what we did as babies; don’t remember. But as we grew, we traipsed through mud puddles, explored our neighborhood, traded crushes on boys and just generally had a marvelous time.

And we laughed. And laughed, and laughed. Through good times and bad, and sometimes through tears, we laugh. Whatever the occasion, we can find something funny. Whatever the pain, we go through it together and make a point to laugh anyway. The laughter is our song to the universe singing a melody of  perseverance to the stars.

We used to meet up for a glass of tea (this usually turned into a several hour affair) and we would laugh, at the simplest, silliest things. Sometimes, I would fuss at her for her timing. Well, it was her own fault! She would say something really funny right before I took a sip of tea and it took all of the control that I could muster not to spew the tea all over her face, because it was so hard to swallow and laugh at the same time. I chuckle now just thinking about it.

Kathy and Cindy

Our time spent together these days is over the phone. During those occasions, one of my boys will enter the room and say, “Well, I know that you are talking to Aunt Cindy”. (I make them call her Aunt because she is too close for them to call her Miss.) I ask them how they know. The answer is usually, “Well Mom, whenever I can hear you laughing loudly all over the house, it means that you are talking to her!”

That is one of the best signs of friendship that I can imagine.

Amen.


copyright 2011 by Kathy Robbins

A High Calling

Wow. What a difference an exception makes!

On Monday of this week, I posted a blog explaining why I needed to be at a Writer’s Retreat at the end of the month. See http://robbinswrites.blogspot.com/2011/09/retreat-re-treat-retweet-and-retreat.html This retreat is at Laity Lodge in Leakey, Texas. This retreat center has been described to me as holy ground. From all I have heard, I am sure it is.

This isn’t just any writer’s retreat. The editorial board of The High Calling will be there in addition to editors from Christianity Today. Other writers who are members of this site will also be in attendance. For more information, see http://www.thehighcalling.org/win-free-trip-laity-lodge-writers-retreat

　

The previous blog post was a requirement to enter a contest for sponsorship to this conference, including travel expenses. In addition to writing the blog, I had to post it in several places, and then put a link back to my blog in the comments section of the announcement on The High Calling website.

As my blog states, I don’t usually do this. And I don’t usually enter contests. But, I did make an exception in this case. For this contest was for something very worthwhile to me. I have never attended a writer’s retreat before and I need the opportunity to network and learn from other writers. Hopefully, I will grow and improve in my writing skills.

Yesterday, I got an email with the subject line saying, “You won”. I thought, “Yeah right, what did I win this time?” After all, I receive spam everyday telling me all that I have won. And I always wind up empty handed. But I knew that they were going to announce the winner for the contest any day, so at the risk of feeling like a sucker, I decided to click on the link. And to my amazement, I was the winner.

I was stunned. There was a phone number in the email to call, which I did in record time and I am now registered.

I am shocked, and excited, and amazed all at once. But more than anything, I am humbled and very grateful for the opportunity to mix, mingle and learn from experienced Christian writers. For truly the opportunity to serve God as a writer is definitely A High Calling.

Here is the link for the announcement: http://www.thehighcalling.org/work/announcing-winner-our-laity-lodge-writers-retreat-drawing

　


　copyright 2011 by Kathy Robbins