a surrender - 59

(Continuing "a surrender", chapter seven, "freely have you received, freely give") 

Later that summer we had our first retreat guests come for a weekend. Friends had given us a dining room table and chairs just the day before. And only a few days before that we had finished painting the third guest room. We were still short two mattresses, two bedsprings, and a nightstand. Two families at the farm loaned us mattresses for the weekend, so we decided to just put the mattresses on the floor, and set up a temporary nightstand. The two staff people with the group slept in that room. There were fresh blueberries, green beans, potatoes, and lettuce from our garden, and several kinds of fresh bread from the farm bakery. I made pizza. Heather roasted two chickens. And everyone had as much as they wanted.

We listened a lot that weekend. And we all discussed the story of Jesus confronting a man’s demons. Heather read to us her own version of the story, to help us get a deeper understanding of what happened that day:

Bad storm today. The sky is as black as my mind, and the wind is whipping the lake till it heaves and groans with the pain, humps itself up into waves that are taller than me. Lightning rips down the sky onto the water, close—very close—the thunder cracks as soon as the light is gone, a sound of huge stone smashing against stone, almost drowning out the voices in my head.

I look up to the cliff where the pigs are pastured; I can hear them when the thunder fades, grunting and screaming in fear. The pig-herders are having a bad day of it. Everyone is; except me. 

Anyone out on that lake is a goner, but here on my hillside of rocks and caves and graves I listen to the thunder and it wraps me in sound, and the voices are stilled to a low angry mutter and I can hear myself think 

I like storms.

Continued...