ARC Winter Newsletter: February 2006 update

Contents:
ARC NEWS
ARC Community in the World
SACRED VOICE BENEFIT CONCERT FOR ARC MARCH 12
CIRCLES AND SEEDS: LETTER FROM DIRECTOR JAN WIERSMA
RETREAT OPPORTUNITIES: SACRED LAUGHTER FROM LINDA HUTCHINSON
FROM THE ARC COOKBOOK: VEGETABLE BARLEY SOUP
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
THANKS TO PHONATHON DONORS
BOOKNOOK NEWS: NEW TITLES FROM ARC FRIENDS

ARC News:

WEEKEND RETREAT TIME NEEDED? Private retreat space in the lodge is available on the weekend of February 10-12. If you are unable to make retreat time during the week, this is a good opportunity to get away for quiet and reflection.

The Community says goodbye to two faithful members: Jerome Belanger, who has been part of the ARC resident community for seven years, and Mark Faris, who has been here for four years total, are leaving ARC to take a new shared position in Chicago. Volunteers, retreatants, and community members will all miss their smiling welcome, their wonderful culinary skills and Jerome’s home-baked bread in particular. And Sophia, who has enlightened Jerome with her wisdom for many years, is seeking a new home! Mark and Jerome will be leaving in the middle of February.

ARC IS NOW accepting applications for COMMUNITY MEMBERS for the spring and summer of 2006. Applications and more detailed information can be obtained on the “Community” page of this web site.

ARC Benefit Concert: Don’t miss the ARC benefit concert to be held Sunday, March 12 at 3:00 p.m., at Shoreview United Methodist Church. See the article below for more information on this fascinating vocal group.

ARC gathering on Feb. 14 in St. Paul
The first gathering of the “ARC Community in the World” will be held at 6 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 14 at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. The event begins with a potluck dinner and ARC-inspired conversation, led by founders Ruth and Loren Halvorson. At 7:30 p.m., the group will gather for prayer and worship in the Chapel of the Cross in Northwestern Hall.

Please see the article below for more information about this thrice-yearly event.
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“Sacred Voice” presents concert to benefit ARC

Bless your ears and your soul while benefiting ARC at “Envisioning a New World – the American Soul Expressed in Choral Music.” The concert will be at 3 p.m., Sunday, March 12, at Peace United Methodist Church at 5050 Hodgson Road, Shoreview. Tickets are $15, or $10 for students and seniors.

Presented by “Sacred Voice,” a 12-voice a cappella choir, the 90-minute program features early hymnody, Biblical songs, spirituals and choral music by contemporary American composers. The concert is part of the choir’s 2006 benefit concert series, whose mission is to “inspire listeners and raise funding and awareness for those in need.”
For the concert, Sacred Voice artistic director Mark Weiler chose a number of early hymnody selections including songs from “Southern Harmony” (1835) and several pieces from “The Sacred Harp” (shape note singing), including “Webster,” “His Voice as the Sound” and “Wondrous Love.” The section concludes with Alice Parker’s uplifting setting of “Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal.”

The centerpiece of the program is the Biblical piece “Kedusha,” arranged by Alice Parker. “Kedusha” is a Hebrew word meaning “set apart.” Parker’s setting employs soloists and full choir with Hebrew and English texts from the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel.

Also on the program are three spirituals including Moses Hogan’s “Jesus Lay Your Head in the Window” and “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” as well as Undine Smith Moore’s “I Believe This is Jesus.” The final section of American composers includes Williametta Spencer’s “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners”; Kenneth Jennings’ “Discipline,” “The Call” and “Antiphon”; Daniel Pederson’s “If I Forget, Yet God Remembers”; Libby Larsen’s “Is God, Our Endless Day”; and J. David Moore’s “A Navajo Blessing.”

For more information about the March 12 concert, contact Peace UMC at 651-484-2226. For information about the Sacred Voice Benefit Concerts, visit the website at www.sacredvoice.org.
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Circles and seeds: What ARC plants takes root and grows for community members in the world

When Nadia Christensen wrote Action, Reflection, Celebration: The ARC Story in the late 1980s, she envisioned community at ARC as three concentric circles, spreading outward from a central core. In the innermost circle is the resident community; next are the non-resident volunteers and part-time staff who offer their talents to the ongoing daily work of ARC. In the third circle are the guests who have come on retreat.

Now, at the beginning of 2006, dozens of residents, hundreds of volunteers and thousands of retreatants have passed through these circles. Some have been dispersed around the world; others remain in intimate connection with the center. Some have been touched by ARC only peripherally; others point to their ARC experience as the direct source of deep and abiding changes in their lives.

But how can change be measured? How can influence be quantified? I myself encountered ARC briefly on a day retreat as a seminary student 15 years ago, when I worked at Luther with Ruth’s husband, Loren. I kept The ARC Story on my bookshelf and fondly opened it now and then. I would not have called my ARC experience pivotal, in any sense – until I re-encountered ARC this summer on the internet during a search for intentional communities, and coincidentally learned that the executive director’s position was open. As I tentatively pursued that opening, each step seemed to fall into place naturally, until I found myself drawn from the outermost circle into ARC’s central core.

When I returned to ARC to fill that post this fall, I was astonished at the deeply imprinted memories that leapt again into focus: The trees. The quilts. The icons in the chapel and its resonant stillness. The napkin rings. Even more, I remembered identifying words and phrases: “Joyful, simple, merciful.” “The journey inward inspires the journey outward.” “Live simply that others may simply live.”

These were the same ideals that grounded me through internship in the Cabrini Green housing project, and competitive post-graduate study at the University of Chicago. They informed my teaching and preaching through 12 years of pastoral ministry in the ELCA: through seven years in a large and flourishing congregation in suburban Chicago and five more in a small but exuberantly welcoming congregation near Indianapolis.

And, returning, I wonder: was I attracted first to ARC because I already shared the values that under-gird it, or did ARC, in some way beyond my understanding, subtly remake me in its own image? Did ARC plant a certain seed in me that slowly germinated through the years? Or was the seed always in me, and a brief visit to ARC simply the soil required to crack open and seek the light?

And I decide: it doesn’t matter in the slightest. What matters is that what ARC stands for is vital to me in the most profound sense: it is of life for me, the ground of my being, what I believe about God and the world. I am more grateful than I can say that I am here now, as an integral part of each concentric circle, encountering the members of each in a more personal way.

Now, when I think of the ARC community in the world, I do so with a deep respect for what people who know ARC carry inside them. I expect that very few who have ever belonged to any one of the three concentric circles remain untouched by their experience. But the seed can be buried, hidden, overwhelmed by the white noise of the world.

With the aim of making the latent lively again, the ARC Board of Directors is creating “ARC Community in the World” events. These gatherings will provide the time and the place for those who have been touched by ARC to get together and remember what it is that is vital to them about what they learned or shared at ARC.

Over the next two years, the ARC board will arrange with six of the institutions (congregations and seminaries) who have supported ARC most faithfully to provide space for dispersed ARC friends to assemble and share a potluck meal, the stimulation of ARC-inspired conversation and the refreshment of ARC-style worship. The gatherings will be held seasonally and will be organized around the coherent, triune center: Action (winter), Reflection (spring) and Celebration (fall).

If you are reading this, you are already invited. You are part of the ARC community in the world. You are welcomed, and encouraged to come to be part of this re-membering venture, to listen to your own soul and open yourself to others’ narratives, and be reminded again of what is vital to your being in this world.

Go back to the top for details on the first gathering of the “ARC Community in the World.” I look forward to meeting you there!
Jan Wiersma, Director
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RETREAT OPPORTUNITIES

Friday-Sunday, March 17-19 Laughter, the Language of the Soul: Living the Good News

Reclaim your sense of humor and allow your soul to speak the language of laughter with this practical, pithy and playful program. There will be discussion and personal reflection on such topics as scripture as divine comedy, the relationship between humor and spirituality, how to lighten and lift our hearts, and humility as the key to humor. Retreat leader Linda Hutchinson, M.A., Theology, is the author of Laugh and Live: Reclaiming Our Sense of Humor. Cost for the retreat is $195.

When did you last make a private retreat at ARC? We love to provide hospitality to individuals also.

Reclaiming sense of humor is antidote to stress, reality

As a humor educator, I talk about the power and possibility of humor, one of the most underutilized resources on the planet. As I write this, I am being challenged to practice what I teach. I didn't get what I wanted for Christmas – for my house to be sold.

Where do you lose your sense of humor? I have had my house on the market for four months. There is an offer on the table, and I am losing my patience with the buyer. It shouldn't be this way; I am arguing with reality. Reality always wins. Plus, I know I shouldn't “should” on myself. I firmly believe that humility is the key to humor. "Shoulding" and arguing with reality are sure signs that I have lost my sense of humor (or at least temporarily misplaced it). They also indicate my lack of humility.

For me, humility is about loving ourselves and others as we are and as we aren't. It is also about accepting what is. In The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Jane Wagner writes that reality is the greatest source of stress amongst those in touch with it. She put reality on the back burner and now life is jam-packed and fun-filled. Just for today, I will put reality on the back burner and do my best to be fun-filled.

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote, "Laughter is the language of the soul." It is one of my favorite quotes. I borrowed it for the title of my retreat on humor and spirituality (see “Retreat Opportunities“ section below) adding the subtitle: “Living the Good News.” It is my belief that we are called to live the good news – to create heaven on earth for ourselves and all people.
Linda Hutchinson

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Vegetable Barley Soup (from the ARC Cookbook)

1/2 onion, chopped 1 C. barley, uncooked
2 carrots, sliced 1 tsp. salt
2 stalks celery, diced 1/8 tsp. pepper
1 C. green beans or fresh peas, sliced 1/2 tsp. marjoram
1/4 C. vegetable oil 1/2 tsp. thyme
1 C. corn 2 T. parsley, chopped
8 C. vegetable stock or water, hot

In large pot, cook onion, carrots, celery and beans or peas in oil, covered, for about 10 minutes. Add stock or water and bring to a boil. Add barley and corn and bring to a boil again. Cover and simmer 45 minutes. Add salt and other seasonings and continue cooking soup another 35 minutes. Stir in parsley at the last minute and serve steaming hot. Thin with additional stock or a bit of milk if desired. Serves 8.
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Volunteer needs update

ARC is delighted to announce that long-time volunteer Heidi Wagner is our new volunteer coordinator. Heidi will head up efforts to see that our many volunteer needs are met, as well as update volunteer files. The goal of that project is to ensure that our records accurately reflect volunteer availability and interests and to get feedback on the volunteer experience. We want to ensure that our volunteers’ hopes and desires for their ARC service are being fulfilled. Expect to hear from someone at ARC in the near future.

When you serve at ARC, you help meet our great volunteer needs as well as give us the pleasure of your company. We love to work side-by-side and spend time with others who love ARC as we do. We look forward to working with you soon!

We also say “Thanks” to Allison Schmitt and her beagle, Yukon, who recently completed three months of service at ARC. And we say “Welcome” to Steve and Joan Janusz who begin their three-month stay in January!
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THANK YOU to all who responded to our phonathon
We are grateful to the ARC friends who responded to our phonathon with pledges early last summer. Following are those from whom we received payment since our September newsletter. Not listed here are the many donors who have already responded to our December appeal letter with an end-of-year gift. Thank you to all of you for keeping the ARC mission and vision alive

Anderson, Patricia
Andrew, Helen
Asp, Marilyn
Bartel, Michelle
Bauer, Timothy L.
Bauer, Valerie A. and Mark E. Freese
Beltz, Patricia
Bertelsen, Darlene
Boatz, Margaret & Robert
Bohrer, Patricia & Steven
Boll, Arlene C. and Mark
Bonnett, David and Kathleen
Bosma, Norma Jean
Brinkman, Marcia
Brooks, Judith S.
Byrne, Thomas
Carmichiel, Carol A.
Carpenter, Mary Lou
Clark-Bolling, Rev. Judith
Clayton, Priscilla
Erickson, Roselyn
Fitzsimmons, Laura M.
Foss, Caroline M.
Fried, Tim and Sue
Gnatek, Catherine and Michael Florey
Gowdy, Kenneth
Graf, Ruth H.
Hawkins, Beverly O.
Hinton, Patricia and James
Hufschmidt, Ellen
Johnson, David and Carol Ann
Kachel, David and Nancy
Kienietz-Hall, Cheryl
Koenig, Peter M.
Kuehl, Myrna
Kuxhausen, Richard and Merna
Laakso, John
Larson, Bette
Lundgren, George
Mahle, Katherine Austin
Maier, Shirley
Manning, Monica
Martin, Carol J.
McDonough, Catherine/Andrew
McGuire, Tom and Sue
McKinley, Cheryl S.
McNearney, Juliet S.
McNeil, Leslie
McRae, Scott and Melanie
Michaels, Jeam and Ronald
Miller, Gregory L.
Minish, Robert
Moench, Christine and Jerry
Monson, Margot and Bjorn
Murray, Anne M.
Nelson, Randy and Joy
Olson, Betty Lou
Parsons, Joan Bennett
Picard, David and Lois
Rabe, George
Rokoski, Anne W.
Ruehlow, Keith
Rydell, Susant T.
Saxon, Sharon
Schake, Melody L.
Schlagel, John
Scott, Geroge and Darle
Shannon, Janet
Shetty, Reena
Smith, Anita
Smith, Mary Ann and Lowery
Stangeland, Mariann K.
Vold, Susan
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New Booknook titles written by ARC friends

Have you noticed that you meet the most interesting people at ARC? Some of them you may not meet in person but through their art or writing instead. Two volumes by recent ARC retreatants and friends are now available in the ARC Booknook.

That would be love

Loneliness,
but
bracketed
by Morning
after Morning
of God’s attempt
to show you
the Sun.
– from House of Music

Suzanne Swanson, who visited ARC for the first time this fall, is a poet as well as a psychotherapist who works in particular with those suffering grief following neonatal loss. The poems in House of Music stitch together the far edges of life – birth and death – in delicate counterpoint, while celebrating the song of life that rings within the connected whole, in the house of music where we all, somehow, live. Suzanne is a member of the Laurel Poetry Collective. Learn more at www.laurelpoetry.com.

Reflection

at age eight-three
she gave unexpected birth
this time to herself
– from The Grace of Ordinary Days

The Grace of Ordinary Days¸ by Kay Saunders and Bernie Saunders, is “an invitation to celebrate life’s journey.” Poetry and photographs flow together in conversation by a mother and son as they revisit the various stages of their lives. Bernie Saunders’s flower photography is a visual feast of lavish beauty, opening the imagination to the unfolding of two intimately intertwined lives. Woven among his mother Kay’s poems are side-by-side recollections of events, prompting readers to deeper perusal of their own family narratives. Signed copies are available at ARC; you can also read more about Bernie Saunders at his website, www.centerforlivingart.com.


Your suggestions requested for Booknook items

“I always seem to find these great books at ARC that I never see anywhere else!”

That’s what one fall retreatant said about our Booknook. And we want to keep it that way! Many books have been purchased this fall, and we need to re-order soon. But we need your help.

What books have you found here that were especially meaningful, and which you have not seen elsewhere? Which books would you especially like us to stock? Because you found it here once, it’s not certain we still have it. Retreatants may have purchased all our copies.

So let us know of books you purchased at ARC that have been particularly good companions for you in your journey. Or suggest others you think we should add to our selection.

Please let us know via email at office@arcretreat.org if possible, and write “Books” in the subject line.