Thursday, August 10, 2006

Do I Smell Piñon in the Air?

And oh, I wanna go
Where the air is clean
And oh, New Mexico wait for me


- David Mead, New Mexico

About this time of year, my heart starts pining for that clean, fall mountain air...those red, moonlike deserts that pop out of the ground almost instantly to form the most bizarre of mesas and mountains. And the smell of those piñon trees split open on the fire for our warmth and light.

About this time of year, I am putting in our registration for the Emergent Gathering near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This year, though, we won't...because we're scheduled to have a baby that same week. And well, while it makes sense that the baby would come during that season (which for us is the advent of our year), we are already grieving missing the get-together.

What is the Emergent Gathering? you ask...well, it's a sort of retreat where we eat together, live together, share stories of inspiration and hope, despair and cynicism. We talk about life, love, God, wine, how to change our world, how to allow ourselves to be changed, how to live in the way of Jesus, and how to help others along the way.

If you are the least bit interested, please check out the blurb for it on the new Emergent website...and sign up...it's free and no one gets paid to do it. Just a beautiful, generative family reunion of sorts.

2 comments:

Andrew Greenhalgh said...

Man, I would so love to go. There's so much of that vibe that we're missing down here in the southeast but I don't the the finances are going to allow it...Maybe next year! How's the pregnancy going, by the way? -Andrew

Nate Custer said...

You and Holly will both be missed, and honestly ma I do wish you would reconsider. What better place to welcome a child into the world then with a huge extended family ;)