Even when it isn’t summer, my mind often wanders to Laity Lodge.  It wanders there in the summer, of course, because the two times I’ve visited the retreat center have both been in late June/early July.  I visited the first time back in 2018 for the “Attending to God in an Age of Distraction,” which was led by Alan Jacobs and James K. A. Smith.  Worship that week was led by Claire Holley, whose version of “God Be In My Head” I still listen to frequently. It was a real moment for me, to have a conversation or two with Jacobs and Smith, as both of them have influenced my ways of thinking and feeling (and who have shown up in my teaching).  My second visit took place last summer, when “Beginning Afresh in the Deadly End” was led by Wes Hill and Kirsten Johnson with worship led by Andy Gullahorn and Jill Phillips, whose music I have followed for over twenty years.

The folks at the Lodge, led by Steve Purcell, get many things right.  The greatest of those things, though, is the Lodge’s sense of rest and hospitality.  The people of Texas have a real blessing in that spot on the Frio River.

Earlier this year, Alan Jacobs wrote a nice piece about his time at the Lodge, where he often visits as both a speaker and one in need of rest.  A nice passage from the piece:

When I get to my room at the Lodge, I re-focus on my plan. I set out the books on the desk. I open the notebook and put the pen across it. But then, because I’ve been in the car for a long time, I need a walk. So, I strap on the hiking shoes and head out onto one of the trails, and as I do, with the Frio below me, the birds above me, and the cedars around me, something happens.

Gradually, and without meaning to, I start to let go of my plan. It no longer seems to matter that much. I take a deep breath of the clean air, and then another. I walk; maybe I stop and just breathe for a while.

Thus, I begin—for the first time in a long time, I perceive—to listen. And when I start to listen, God begins to speak to me … or maybe it’s better to say that when my own mental babble quietens for a moment, I realize that God has been speaking to me all along.

I’m grateful to say that I can echo the experience.  The whole piece is worth reading.

I’m not sure when I’ll get back.  It definitely adds a leg to an already long trip.  And spaces are often limited and go quickly,  But I’ve made at least one good friend from my time at the Lodge, and my personal library has benefited greatly from what I’ve encountered there.  It’s a good picture of what rest can be, of what hospitality can look like.  It’s a great picture of making space to find and listen again to the God we too often lose in the noise.