Lake Junaluska and an untitled poem

This past weekend October 4-6, 2008, I went to Lake Junaluska in Waynesville, NC for my annual Choir Workshop retreat. Lake Junaluska is a mountain retreat for the South Eastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church. It is a beautiful place and once a year in this general time period, I go with my family and this year 368 other choir members from around the world (Germany and another country were represented this year) spend a weekend in devotion and learning 8 new anthems for a service held on Sunday morning. It is intense and a lot of work, but also refreshing and very fulfilling.

I spent two hours on Saturday in two journaling classes, one on making an actual journal and one on how to approach writing one and that is where this blog was born. What follows is a poem written during the second work shop. I will post pictures as soon as I figure all that out...

(the following was written from a picture of a light that I thought was the moon over a fence next to the lake at night)

10-05-08

Darkness swept over like a rolling fog
enveloping the world
nothingness crept in
A chill burned my ears and cheeks
sending shivers down my back
as the wind bellowed the nylon
I had cocooned myself in
the moon peaked out

. . . A Beacon
God's lighthouse
a reminder that I am not alone
The memory of armth rushed in

I turned away and headed up the hill . . .