We Did It!

Posted by Streams School of Ministry, NH

Wow.



What a whirlwind of a week.

Monastic week officially ended on Friday evening, around 6pm, and let me tell you...if it was anything (besides being scary-wonderful) it was a bit of a bumpy ride. We all learned a ton and even though it was difficult to stick to all the rules at times, everybody really appreciated the simplicity of a monastic lifestyle.

At first monastic week seemed to be quite a daunting task to undertake. What with no sugars, refined flours, meats, words, and sometimes electricity, looking ahead towards monastic week was an intimidating sight to behold.

But a few days into it I think we all realized how peaceful and beautiful a monastic lifestyle could be. Not having as many words spewing out of our mouths, or even the shoveling of junk food into it, it forced us to think about the simpler things in life. Many of the things we used to rely on were no longer available to us, and it toppled down some of our life-perspectives to make room for some newer, simpler ones:

*many of the things we say aren't as significant or important as we previously thought.

*not using your laptop for 4 days won't kill you.

*silence is beautiful.

*the Lord loves to speak to us when we are in silence.

*top ramen is not a food group.

*uno in silence and candlelight is very interesting and should be done more often :)

*when we shut our mouths, the Lord opens His...and breathes life on things we thought we let die within us. New creativity then sprouts forth as an incredible fresh start.

*silence showed us how to put value on things we previously overlooked.

*Thus, we all realized how much we loved and appreciated each other, as family, as fellow interns, as leaders, and as friends...*

It was a great week.

ps. I'll be posting pictures from our monastic week soon, so be sure to stay tuned!

Many blessings,
-Jourdan M.
1st year intern