Prior to the weekend, I received detailed information from Dana Bush, the liaison person in Calgary Monthly Meeting for the FGC Traveling Ministries Program. Similar information had been emailed to everyone in the meeting-they are ALL on email, which greatly facilitates communication.

I drove to the Vancouver airport on Friday afternoon (only 62 miles away, closer than Seattle!), flew to Calgary, and was met by Kitty Dunn, then taken to Dana Bush's home where I was to stay the night. I enjoyed meeting Dana's husband Dan and their daughter Meara, as well as various household pets. Soon we were picked up by Heidi Dick, the clerk of Calgary Meeting, and driven to the home of a family in meeting who would not be able to attend the retreat. Joined by many others in the meeting, we had a delicious potluck supper, and I found myself in the midst of adorable children and what was clearly a happy and devoted group of Friends. After much free-flowing conversation where I absorbed a lot of stories about how each of them got to where they were geographically, we said good night and crunched our way over the snow, under a star-filled night sky, and into cars to head back to the brightly lit city of Calgary, spread out over a vast range of what used to be prairie.

On Saturday morning, Dana's husband Dan drove us to the retreat site about an hour northwest of the city. The retreat was held at Camp Valaqua in Water Valley, a Mennonite camp with comfortable facilities beautifully situated among the spruces, aspens, and lodge pole pines along one side of a river flowing east (under the ice) from the Rocky Mountains. Our little group, numbering only 12 adults and 2 children, had the run of the place.

After lunch (all meals were brought and prepared by Calgary Friends), we sat around a table and talked about Calgary Meeting in general. Dana read the letter of introduction provided, and I conveyed Joanne Spears' best wishes. Then I began the first session, focusing on personal listening and discernment, using Patricia Loring's two volumes on "Listening Spirituality" as basic and recommended resources. After giving some background about discernment, I asked Friends to sit quietly alone for fifteen minutes and listen to what rose to the surface for them-something that felt it needed more attention. When we gathered again, I then asked if they would be willing to draw, using supplied crayons and paper, NOT their particular concern, but the relationship between themselves and what they were listening to-the I-Thou communication-as they experienced it. This activity turned out to be quite fruitful, I think. We spent some time showing our drawings and discussing what they revealed about our inner life of listening. Each of us seemed to have a sense of there being a vast and unknowable center that we
were variously in touch with, and that to find it we had to get past the distractions and blind paths that lay between us and that center. For some, the center was interior and deep; for others, the center was enveloping and surrounding. Circular and spherical shapes predominated in the drawings.

When we finished the session, it was time for a hike out into the snow and down along the frozen riverbed. Tracks of snowmobiles made our walking easy, and Friends paired up in small groups to enjoy being together in the pristine environment. It was a good time for intimate conversations for Friends who knew each other well and wanted to catch up with what had been happening recently.

After returning, some of us chopped kindling and Dana started a fire in the fireplace. We all ate supper together, cleaned up the kitchen, then gathered for the evening session around the fire.
Because there had been previous references to the fact that the group had not talked about their feelings or relationship to Jesus, or to Christian language and symbolism, or even their concept of a deity, I encouraged them to use this time to share with each other what all that meant to them. The group size of 12 was just perfect for this kind of self-revelation, and there was careful listening and understanding. After almost two hours of serious personal sharing, we closed the session and some of us went to bed. The next morning, I heard that a number of Friends had stayed up past midnight, digging even deeper into personal experience.

Sunday morning was Family Meeting for Worship, mostly silent except for the small noises of the children. The late night hours were evident-it was a bit of a snoozing Meeting. To revive ourselves, some of us took another short walk around the snowy camp after lunch, and then settled into our final session together.

Because the focus was to be on corporate discernment at this session, I first asked if there were any particular meeting concerns that Friends wanted this opportunity to explore. It took a while, but two concerns arose. One was the wish, expressed by a couple of Friends, that there would be more vocal ministry during their Meetings for Worship. The second concern, more broadly held, was that their meeting was too small. They were feeling the pinch because, with inadequate numbers, they did not see how they could continue coming to the Mennonite camp, which was in question. They also did not want to burn out the few people who carried the major roles in the meeting.

We discussed growth for a while and I began to realize that there was very little vision about growth or change, or even purpose other than to treasure their own Quaker community, which they certainly did. I shared Bellingham Meeting's experience of placing a 2"x4" ad in each issue of the local monthly Food Coop newsletter for the past year and a half. Over that time period,
more than 40 people have visited our meeting at least once, 17 of whom have been attending with some frequency. Of those 17, 9 have taken on committee assignments this spring. And of those 9, 1 has joined the meeting and two others are seriously considering it. I summed up my own feeling about growth, which was that when Calgary Meeting was clear that it wanted to grow, ways would open for Calgary Friends to help people who would feel at home among Friends to discover the meeting. It was a case for corporate discernment at some future time.

I led the group, then, in another exercise to help them look at their corporate awareness. I announced a staged Meeting for Worship for Business, and acting as clerk, I gave them a fictitious scenario. I said that a generous former attender, in her will, had left Calgary Meeting $250,000 after all estate taxes. The money was all theirs to spend with only one stipulation-that all decisions regarding the use of the money had to be made by the meeting as a whole at regular Meetings for Business.

There was a lot of humor and laughter in the course of considering this, of course, but the discussion illuminated a number of things. I kept notes, and what emerged was a real sense of wanting to hear what each other said, and the recognition that if this were a real situation, it would take quite some time to become clear. I gave the notes to the clerk for future reference-the things that Friends shared were valuable glimpses of a variety of visions about Calgary Meeting.

I don't think I drew many conclusions for Friends about corporate discernment other than the observation that there might be need for it, and that they had the primary ingredients, which was a loving respect for each other's experience and insights. We closed the session when it was evident that enough was enough-energy began dragging and thoughts were turning toward
home. We gathered in a silent circle, and then ended with a rousing dance together to the bouncy rhythms of Sandra Boynton's "Barnyard Dance," a children's book, to the delight of 3-year-old Craig AND the rest of us.

After everyone joined in giving the lodge a thorough cleaning, there were hugs all around and people departed. I was driven back to Calgary and, soon after, to the airport. I felt so fortunate to have been able to spend the weekend with these dear Friends. They have a strong sense of appreciation and affection for one another and a deep respect for each other. They love their Quaker community and often talked about how much Western Half-Yearly Meeting meant to them, even more than Canadian Yearly Meeting as a whole. There was general awareness of Friends General Conference, partly, of course, because of the Traveling Ministries Program, but also because of the Gathering. In fact, many Friends reflected that pervasive feeling that FGC WAS the Gathering. However, when it came to books and materials, they knew they could get them directly from the FGC bookstore by using the website!

Calgary Friends place great importance on their retreats and have attempted to have them more than once a year. They did all the planning and food preparation; my role as an FGC resource person was limited to facilitating the three 1-1/2 hour sessions together, which was really nice! They had built in lots of time for just being together-there was time to talk, to walk, to sing and play music, to relax. It was one of the most easy-flowing, unhurried weekends I've ever spent with Quakers. I felt honored to be among them and welcomed so intimately and trustingly, and I was warmed by their friendship and quiet sense of integrity as Quakers in the Calgary area.

After I got home, I sent them all a selection of quotations on discernment and Quakerism which I had meant to print out and take with me, but forgot, since I had just returned from Ohio the evening before I left. I also sent to various Friends bits of information that I had promised in the course of the weekend, and many thank yous all around.

One reason the numbers were small for the retreat was that there was a meeting of Canadian Friends Service Committee the same weekend, which took two Calgary Friends to Toronto. A few others had other commitments and couldn't come. Attending were Dana Bush, Kitty Dunn, Heidi Dick, Linda Kreitzer, Julie Paradis, Kate Holden, and Dennis Cressman, all from Calgary; Susan and David Hall and their two children, Emiline (1-1/2) and Craig (3) from Cochrane, just north of Calgary; and Greg Meaker and Darcy Ziebert from Golden, British Columbia, about three hours west on the other side of the Rockies. They each have a presence in my heart.

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