We retreated this summer——to my house in Kodiak. Seventeen of us, from everywhere. But the Kodiak bears did not retreat. One particular mama, undoubtedly stressed out by triplets, has been roaming and shopping all around town, including up and down my road.

Which is not really where you want to see a bear. Or four. (Or more).

And then there were the whales. We’d been watching them all week from my front windows. Finally we got to join them. This day, more than a dozen humpbacks surrounded our boat. Humpbacks are the fun whales who launch their massive bodies into air like dirigibles, erupting from their world into ours for reasons we don’t fully know but I’m sure of this—-for the pure paradoxical delight of being the worlds’ largest creature who can, for a miracled second, hang weightless in the air.

We watched them full-body breach again and again . ..

( I wasn’t able to capture on film) I did, however, catch this one’s joyful tail-slapping . ..

But this week, the wildest ones of all were us. Do you see?

And we didn’t actually retreat. We came out of our dens, our damp caves, our watery haunts. We did.

We came together and dared to reach back into deep pockets of memory and story, and to bring out what lay there, crumpled, disvalued, forgotten. And then we dared to set them out in front of one another, no matter how wrinkled, spoiled, sweet or soiled the story.

And we listened to one another. Closely. We did not turn away. And we believed one another. We silenced the critics, the potshots, the deniers, the doubters. One woman at the retreat said softly on the last day, “I’ve grown up in the church. I’ve been around God’s people all my life. But this is the kindest group of people I’ve ever been around.”

We found what we are always looking for and often cannot find:

When we dare to share our lives, to tell our stories to others, when we dare to be known, and dare to perhaps even be loved, oh yes, it’s wild and risky. It’s feels as wild as bears about town.

But it’s possible. We can do it. God has made it so.

And we need it now more than ever. Because the fences and walls between us have risen high.

Would you try? Don’t worry about covid anymore. Don’t hide. Come out. Take a risk. Go back to church. Find people. Bring people together. Tell each other your lost-and-found stories, your running-away-from-home stories. Be real. Tell each other the truth. And do you know what might happen?

The same thing that happened for us. As we sat in circles, entering each others’ stories and lives, didn’t we do it, didn’t we slip the bonds of doubt, disbelief, sorrow, differences, aloneness to break through the waters and rise up, full-bodied, full-hearted, launching weightless and joyous and free?!?!?

We did.

Knowing fully and loving wholly is that powerful, that wild.

Dear Friends, Would you share a time when you experienced this, being fully known and loved? (Bear and whale encounters also welcomed!)