I began this series on the spiritual discipline of hanging out, by reflecting on how much I enjoyed my time last weekend speaking at a men’s retreat. However, in my last post I mentioned that no less a theological giant than the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer has famously sounded a blunt note of caution on the benefits of retreats. In his classic work, Life Together, he writes, “Nothing is easier than to stimulate the glow of fellowship in a few days of life together but nothing is more fatal to the sound, sober brotherly fellowship of everyday life.” (p. 39)
At the risk of demonstrating my sheer hubris for taking issue with a martyr of the church, let me respond with this: I disagree…kind of.
Bonhoeffer was referring to the way in which people who hunger for community would rather attend a camp, conference or retreat than actually face the day in, day out reality of loving and caring for the people who are right in front of you every day. Instead of trying to genuinely get to know, love and support the person in the pew next to you, we think that true Christian community is the spiritual high we get singing “A Mighty Fortress is our God” in a stadium filled with people we’ll never see again.
When Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together, he was reflecting on the communal life of seminarians who were already living in deep fellowship together. They literally ate, drank, slept, studied and struggled together. In short, they were involved in the messy, everyday life of close-quarters fellowship. Think military barracks and college dorm rooms, Christian camp staff and third world mission trips (and maybe I should add, being on church staffs and working in Christian schools, but that might be overstating the issue).
In situations like these, where people are hanging out together, they needed to be reminded that Christian community and discipleship of Christ is more “real” in every day situations then in ideal and idyllic “retreats” away from the real world. They needed to beware of becoming bitter that their everyday Christian friendships were not as perfect as the people they met for only brief moments in a spiritual oasis. (Ask anybody who works on a church staff how hard it is to keep up your Christian ideals when you spend all day “back stage” in the nitty-gritty of church life as a job.)
So, then, what about retreats?
Let’s face it, except for our families (or housemates if we are single) most of us are never in “up close and personal” experiences of fellowship. Our situation is exactly the opposite of the circumstances which Bonhoeffer addressed. Most of us are mostly disconnected. We rush late into church, we sit in the same pew, we nod at a neighbor whose name we forget, we sing next to them (not with them, really) and at most we “pass the peace of Christ” at the prescribed time. We may stand around for ten minutes on the patio for a cup of coffee or a cookie, but we rarely have the time to actually get to know the people around us in any deep and meaningful way.
And mostly that takes time. Slow, unhurried conversation over meals and late into the night. And if nothing else, that is the best thing about retreats. When a retreat can be not an “ideal” setting, but instead a “real and slow” setting, community and spiritual transformation can begin to occur.
I’ll have more on this tomorrow.
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