I’ve had this retreat scheduled for months. Usually I am quite happy to be getting away, in fact rather excited. However, this time it was different. I really did not want to leave home! I’ve come to understand that essentially we walk in wilderness everyday. It’s not necessarily a place but more states of environments.  It’s also not all necessarily bad. Sure – stuff happens! Things around us are being constructed and deconstructed at every moment of our lives. We don’t always know what’s about to happen. We only know what it is that we are called to do today, right now, this very moment. If we want something to change, the process of that change must come deep from within the passion that is within us. Life’s journey is about responding to the various experiences we have in these environments and some experiences are more wilderness than others. But life in Christ is about learning to respond in peace in that wilderness, guided by the spiritual presence of God. So, finally, with a workable understanding of “being in the world and not of it, (John 17:15-19)” I’ve learn to accept my “wilderness” as part of life. But more importantly once I return from this retreat, I get to be filled with the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14-30) back in to my wilderness with so much more peace knowing that it is the Spirit which guides me.