It’s Friday, and I’m at the Pines Resort above Oakhurst, California, near Yosemite.  It’s a beautiful sunny day, and the temps right now feel like they are in the 70’s, maybe even the 80’s.  I came up early to get some work done before our Chamber of Commerce retreat begins this evening.

A luxury I don’t normally have is to be able to stay basically on one task.  In this case that is to write sermons, read, and rest a bit.  Most of the time tasks are broken up by conversations, meetings, and ministry—all good but still interfering.  So this Chamber retreat has opened an opportunity to get additional things done.

One of the things I’m going to complete while here is reading Redeemed by Heather King.  The byline of the book reads “A Spiritual Misfit Stumbles Toward God, Marginal Sanity, and the Peace That Passes All Understanding.”  I just finished writing a sermon about the importance of having contact with fellow disciples.  Then I read this from King’s book.

The Eucharist is the ultimate participation in something greater than myself, and the fact that it require participation reminds me that, much as I’d often like to, I can’t trod the spiritual path alone…I think maybe he [Jesus] was saying that the flesh-and-blood human encounter, in all its messiness, its awkwardness, it’s necessary incompleteness, is the way we come to God.

Our Chamber retreat begins tonight.  I’m looking forward to that a great deal.  I think there’s no end to the good that people can do when they create joint visions.  Our Chamber board is made up of extraordinarily talented people, and it will be interesting to see what they dream.

Epworth-by-the-Sea was the venue for January Adventure.  Epworth is located on St. Simons Island, adjacent to Brunswick, Georgia.  It serves as a retreat center of the United Methodist Church, and it holds the ‘January Adventure’ as a yearly renewal opportunity for church leaders.

The median age of the people attending January Adventure was striking.  There were nearly 700 in attendance, and most of the attendees were 55 or older.  I specifically looked for people aged 40 and younger, and I’d guess there were less than 20 in the whole group.

I doubt that age demographic is unique to the UMC.  Other groups are suffering the same situation.  The absence of younger cohorts is surely a call to action.  Otherwise who will take the place of these aging Baby Boomers?

It was sweet to hear “Southern” spoken again.  “Hi sugar,” was told by young and old alike.  “How are y’all?”  “Y’all” works as both a singular and plural pronoun.  When I hear the word it conjures up okra, real cornbread, purple hull peas, and Southern hospitality.

I loved the steaming white grits I got to eat with my breakfast.  The pecan pie I got with dinner on Tuesday was another tasty deja vu.  When I was a kid they called them “Georgia ice cream.”  With a pat of butter and some pepper on them they send me into breakfast heaven.

As we waited for the first session to begin, background music was playing softly.  I’d have expected it to be hymns or spirituals of some sort.  Instead it was bluegrass and fiddle music.  I expected to see Alison Krause walk out on stage.