Silver linings, finding order in the chaos, and the glass is half full kinda gratitude…
September 15, 2013 | Kristy Letkeman

Good morning! It seems fitting to be in this place with you. Most often I go to churches and talk about Shekinah or nature or God in creation! But this morning…we are here, in this place. Maybe I don’t need to speak at all;) Just kidding.

In any case…Greetings on behalf of the staff and board of Shekinah Retreat Centre. Thank you for coming to spend some time in this place. And thank you for inviting me to be here with you this morning.

SO…We’ve all been through hard times….sometimes there are moments when life is SO hard, where God feels far from present, when the darkness seems to press in on all sides…when light enough for the next step seems like the most difficult thing in the world. We’ve all had times like these in our own journeys.

BUT…We’ve also had moments where there are glimpses of light and hope and it seems as though we might make it! Perhaps these are moments of joy or success or simply moments when it’s not quite SO hard. SO this morning, I want to share with you an account of the last several months at Shekinah ….when it was hard, really hard…but also when we were able to muster the strength to see the light so we could see a silver lining, so we could see the order in the chaos, and so we could try to have that “glass is half full” kinda gratitudeJ

The overview of the journey goes as follows…although this is the perspective of looking back…in the moment, it was much more difficult to see a silver lining, the order in the chaos, and even to attempt a “glass is half full” kinda gratitude….but looking back, it is much much easier…

April 29th…8:30pm…The flood waters were rising. BUT new staff and old staff joined together to attempt to hold the waters back out of the chalet. We did what we could and then gave it over to God in prayer.

April 30…1:30pm…The flood waters reached 3.5 feet inside and outside the chalet. BUT, as word got out…so came support from many thoughtful people in the form of hauling in drinking water, bringing water pumps, fans, hugs, prayers and standing together in awe and despair of what water can do…

April 30…4:30pm…The flood waters had receded. I opened the door to the chalet and amidst chaos, overturned tables and chairs and river mud, my pair of Birkenstock sandals which had been stored deep in a drawer of an overturned countertop….they floated by in a perfect pair.

May 1…A day of chaos and unknowns after the water receded.

May 2…11am. The representatives from MDS came to visit and within 10 minutes of looking around the chalet…they committed to the project, to helping us get back on our feet. We were overjoyed! And SO thankful! Definitely a full glass of gratitude that day!

May 3 and 4th….Amidst MANY unknowns and phone calls and questions and sleepless nights….more than 40 volunteers arrived to gut the chalet on day one and then 20 more came the second day. By the end of day 2…we were ready-ish to start on the rebuilding process.

And amidst this gutting process….there were indeed  many silver linings: for example there were many instances where our mice friends had made nice little homes for themselves in the walls and cupboards. We made sure to clean that up and address that issue. The kitchen floor was in rough shape even without the flood…but we wouldn’t have really known otherwise. Now we would repair it! The water treatment centre’s electric panel was about 2 inches from being sub merged in the flood. As a result…there was actually minimal damage to that particular source of life at Shekinah. The copper pipes in the bathroom pipes were quite thin in some places and needed to be repaired anyway. Add it to the list!

Donations came in, many people came to help when they could amidst busy lives, decisions were made, and work was checked off the list…little by little. Good things indeed!

This wasn’t to say there wasn’t tough stuff along the way. In fact, there were days that it seemed like NOTHING was going our way. Days when the glass was definitely half empty and there were wonderings about how much more we could POSSIBLY handle. BUT…there were moments of gratitude and relief in these things too!

We had days without volunteers or just a handful. The work was slow these days…but not nonexsistent.
The new stove barely fit in the door. But it did fit.
The wrong freezers were sent…twice. But we have the correct ones now.
The plumbing wasn’t done for the kitchen sinks and taps in the kitchen until the Friday before camp started. But we have plumbing in the kitchen….water where it’s supposed to be.
The plumber BARELY agreed to hookup the stove for us because his specs didn’t jive with what had been told to me when I ordered the stove. But he hooked it up.
Cupboards had to be removed in order for the plumber to agree to hooking up the stove. SO we moved the cupboards….and now we can put them back!

And then in all this…there was an ALMOST second flood (at the end of June when the river water is normally higher due to the mountain run off in BC…which was compounded this year by the extreme amount of rain in AB) During this flood sandbags were brought in to attempt to protect our treasured chalet, and all the work that had been completed over the last 2 months. Seriously!?! More water?? Again…we did what we could, prayed and gave it to God, and then tried to get some sleep.

The next morning…all was well. The water had crested just after midnight. The shantys were fine, and so was chalet and kitchen…the water had come RIGHT up to the sandbags. BUT it did not come in.

And then summer camp began…in a chalet that had JUST what it needed, nothing more. And away the summer program went! Order…amidst chaos.

Then from there….life progressed, and yet….there was still MUCH more to learn and reflect on by way of gratitude as I journeyed forward.

• When summer camp started and the Bible curriculum was put into action…well, personally…it caught me off guard in fairly significant ways. Let me explain. The bible curriculum as a whole was entitled “God’s promises” and the theme or promise for the first day of the curriculum was the promise of a rainbow….when God promises to never flood the earth again. I struggled to reconcile this promise to my most recent experiences….and I think that I still, to a certain extent continue to struggle with this.
• However, this was also a moment that began a journey that challenged and encouraged me to think about and grapple with the stories that we have been told over and over again…
• This doesn’t mean that I have the answer to the “Why did Shekinah flood?” question…I’m not sure I ever REALLY will. And it doesn’t mean that I still don’t struggle…but, it does mean that I do hear God’s promises in the Bible and in my life and in the life of Shekinah. God promises to be there for us! And God certainly has been! God promises to take care of us!  God promises to go behind and before and within us! God promises to love us! God promises to move in our midst in the work that is done in this place and in each of our lives! The rainbow that God placed in the sky that day….means that God promised a lot of things! And when I think of it that way….this is definitely a silver lining, seeing the order amidst the chaos and more than a glass is half full kinda gratitude for these promises….even if I struggle with some of them from time to time!

 

• And then when people would ask me how things were going throughout the summer…it was difficult to give them the honest answer. Yes, camp was going, and it was going well. Yes, we had made it through the push to make the chalet a functional building again and it WAS A LOT better than it had been…but there was still so much to do and the staff were tired and worn out. I myself have been struggling to find joy again after such a journey. I felt bogged down…but the sounds of summer camp were indeed a blessing. Mixed feelings….good amidst not so good.
• SO…this half full kinda gratitude has also taught me to be honest…with myself, with the staff, and with those who ask how things are going…I think this is a silver liningJ
• I should clarify….it doesn’t necessarily mean that I answer perfectly honestly every time…do you have an hour?
• But it does means that that when people ask…it means that it’s not the classic “I’m fine!” or shorthanded “good” response anymore. It’s not glazed over…because I want to be aware of my responses and I want to be honest….people who ask…generally, really want to know an honest answer!
• This learning was maybe something I didn’t necessarily see in the moment…in the chaos, but it was something that emerged as I journeyed forward. It was order gleaned from chaos.

• Then…when I was sitting in church this last Sunday…and the phrase WATER IS LIFE was used several times. I sat there and I struggled to reconcile this very true fact with my very recent experiences here at Shekinah. Yes! Water is indeed life for drinking and washing and sustaining our lives, but Shekinah has also experienced the power of water and the damages it can cause. How to reconcile?? I’m sure that many others affected by flooding and tsunamis and storms might feel this way as well but as I thought about it more…well, hindsight is always brilliant. When the flood waters hit…we were devastated and hurt and broken. From this chaos emerged what seemed like a renewed  (and in some cases NEW) sense of life and support for Shekinah. Volunteers from all sorts of churches came on the days we gutted the chalet. 16 young people from a Mormon congregation spent a full day hauling gravel, people made time to come and people gave donations to help us along the way. The support and prayers and love we felt as Shekinah staff and as people in your community was overwhelmingly wonderful! As donations came in, as prayers were said, as announcements were made in our churches, you came to volunteer when you had the time…this is life. There was hope and life in each of these things…and more! There is life in this place…and this life extends to each of the churches. There is life indeed! So…Perhaps water is life…even in circumstances such as this?

 

So when I was paging though one of my favourite Henri Nouwen books the other day in preparation for a staff meeting…I came across a short piece entitled “the spiritual work of gratitude” I was taken aback…it was one of those moments when I was like “of course!”

Here’s what Henri Nouwen (January 12, Bread for the Journey) says:

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections—that requires hard spiritual work. Still we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

And so…it has definitely been  a journey filled with downs and ups here at Shekinah and for all you connected with this place. But I think that this “silver linings, finding order amidst chaos, glass is half full kinda gratitude” is transferrable to the journey that we are each on….

It doesn’t mean that we slap on our fake smile and pretend everything is alright and it although that is sometimes necessary too!) doesn’t mean that it still won’t be hard…but once you are able to see light enough for the next step…perhaps it might be easier to see the silver linings, the order amidst chaos and see the good stuff that fills you (at least) half full with gratitude. Perhaps it is when God pulls you up out of the miry pit that you can better look back and see the very presence of God in and around and behind and before you….I know that was what it was like for me.

So…in the end, or perhaps in the beginning….May your eyes and heart be opened to a kind of gratitude that fills your soul…at least half fullJ

Amen.

Genesis 8:1, 9:12-17
Psalm 40:1-3a
Revelation 21:1-6