Meet and Greet

Meet and Greet today comes to us from the Grand Canyon, where a few of us journeyed following the BE 2.0. It seems appropriate to share with you some of the highlights of our conference with Wil Gafney on the topic of Women Prophets:Daughters of Miriam.

Day One: April 16
We arrived throughout the day...and found our rooms around courtyards like this one:


Some of us arrived early enough to walk the labyrinth....notice if you can, the ground squirrel who made her home under the labyrinth...


And here is the view beyond the labyrinth....


The first night we gathered after supper and share the creation story of RevGals...a delightful email trail of blogger comments. Afterward we entered our worship space

for an evening prayer led by Wil. Most of us, who had travelled far, and been up many hours went to bed after the worship. A few of us stayed up awhile longer enjoying spicy salsa and chips with a little wine or "pop."

Day 2
We gathered after breakfast for morning worship and then our first presentation by Wil. She led us through an interesting discussion on who is a prophet...and finding women in the texts of the Bible, even when it appears that women aren't there...We did some small group work looking at the various kinds of "prophets", a bit more group discussion, and then broke for lunch. (See Wil Ganey's book, Daughters of Miriam, Women Prophets in Ancient Israel, for more infor).The afternoon we had free time. A number of us went into "Old Scottsdale" and did some shopping at the ....some of us bought knitting supplies for the first time while others decided to try and up our knitting technique with more complicated patterns.

We reconvened with Wil for an evening study session followed by evening worship. Some of us stayed up late playing cards....(what were you playing???)

Day 3:
We had sabbath time on Saturday morning. Some of us walked the grounds, others chose to go back into Old Scottsdale. We gathered in the afternoon for more time with Wil looking at the begats in 1 Chronicles and listing all the women named in chapters 1-8...we also broke into small groups and choose a story in scripture about a woman and recorded it using just the pronoun "she" and the verbs associated with the woman's story: so, "She said," "she bowed," "she spoke," etc....and during our small group work we enjoyed this courtyard:

and some flowers in the area:


Following our time with Wil we had a short break and then reconvened for a group photo:


After the photo we had dinner and then spent a relaxing evening around a

the night was cool, the fire was blazing (that's Wil in the background, if you can see her), the wine flowed (well water and "pop" too), and the conversations delightful.

Day 4:
As I write this it is Saturday night. Sunday morning we will gather for a closing Eucharist written by various members of those attending. Afterward seven us are loading into two cars and heading north to the Grand Canyon. The rest will be taking the shuttle back to the airport and heading home. If this is posted as written it means I have not been able to add anything further about our BE 2.0 since Saturday night.....but I will update as possible.

All I can say is, it's really been wonderful. Thank you to those who helped create this wonderful blog ring and for the inspiration to bring us together for the Big Events. There is already conversation about next year: where (East coast? Southeast?), what (cruise? retreat center, a personal home), when (how many weeks after Easter, 1 or 2?)....but whenever, whatever, wherever....plan to be at the BE 3.0....