Hola!

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

Well folks, I'm back after a couple of days in Colorado and nearly a week in the high desert of New Mexico (6500 feet.) Thanks to the little miracle of commercial flight I was in the tiny adobe airport in Santa Fe at ten yesterday morning, in Denver by noon, and home in Bowmanville by a reasonable hour in the evening. I had a great visit with hospitable friends in Colorado and a spiritually stimulating time at Ghost Ranch, the conference centre run by the Presbyterians in the remarkable wilderness landscape of New Mexico.

I came back to the office to discover my computer is not working and the sermon which I had half finished before departing is in cyberneverland. So I'm toiling away at home unable to access my email or anything else.

Part of my time at Ghost Ranch was in a program called Christ, Creation, and Contemplation with 20 others, an eclectic and interesting group from all over the U.S. I was the token Canadian. The leader was Philip Newell, one of the leading writers on Celtic Christianity and his wisdom was worth the travel.

Then I spent three days in retreat at the creation centre established about four kilometres from the main compound of Ghost Ranch called Casa del Sol -- house of the sun. The ranch is 21,000 acres, so they have plenty of room to spread out. It was a tranquil, astonishingly beautiful spot and I was the only retreatant. Casa del Sol is a refurbished adobe hacienda just down the road from the house owned by artist Georgia O'Keeffe and apparently she would come to Casa del Sol on occasion and climb up on the flat roof to paint. She loved the stark spirit of the landscape and I did too. There is a Roman Catholic monastery, a Sufi Muslim retreat, and a Sikh centre within a few miles of Ghost Ranch so others sense the holiness of this region. This region was a place of spiritual significance for native people long before any of these groups showed up.

I will be back with more reflection in the days ahead.