Jamie's visit!

So last Saturday our community was joined by our area director, Jamie, for a several day visit. It was her first trip to Alaska and we were all really pumped to 1. see Jamie and 2. have a visitor! We attempted to welcome Jamie to Sitka by each standing somewhere different along the road between the airport and our house (maybe 4 miles) holding signs that said "Hi Jamie." This of course didn't totally work out because her flight got in a little early and the Sitka airport is literally one room. We ate some halibut (a gift from a random fisherman) for dinner and then took Jamie on a little walk around Sitka because it was a pretty nice night. We went back to the house and played some cards for a couple of hours and just started catching up on how things were going so far in town for us. On Sunday we went to St. Gregory's for mass and since she was a visitor, Jamie was welcomed by Fr. Scott and the community. After mass we went on a hike of Herring Cove which is just as beautiful in the rain as it is in the sun so that hike was a lot of fun.

On Monday morning I had my one on one meeting with Jamie which I had really been looking forward to. We walked around Totem Park a bit and along the beach because the tide was out and it was really good for me to talk about how things were going and about each of the four values. I have and continue to live them out on a daily basis, but reflection on and conversations about specific values are not always happening so it was good for me to focus on them and talk out my thoughts and struggles with them pretty clearly. I think that some of these reflections will probably be finding their way to this blog pretty soon too.

On Monday night, Jamie led a spirituality night for us and it was awesome! At least it was extremely powerful and inspirational for me. Jamie read a few excerpts from a book whose name escapes me at the moment but is a compilation of photos and interviews and focuses on liberation theology. Following the excerpts we had several questions to reflect on and we shared our 3 favorite phrases in a circle so as to create group poetry. This reflection really got me to thinking about where I am and am not seeing God in my experiences in community, at work, in nature and in the Sitka community. We all talked for about an hour after reflection about some of these questions and I think that my perspective and approach to my spirituality is in the process of being refocused so as to get the most out of this experience and not miss out on the truly important and powerful experiences and lessons that I am engaging in here.

Rather than summarizing every day and little thing that happened during Jamie's visit, I think that using just a few examples would do the trick:
1. Reading children's stories from the 1960's and The Indian in the Cupboard out loud while a couple people fell asleep at 8pm.
2. Many trips to the White E for books, Alaska Day sweatshirts and ridiculously cool hats that Jamie found.
3. Yogurt and lots of it.
4. A self-care training session for SAFV that stressed me out.
5. Jamie giving directions to tourists after 2 days in town.
6. Feeling like Jamie had been living with us for weeks and not a few days.
7. 1 month until retreat!