The Bosnian (or Turkish or Greek, depending on who is serving) coffee was flowing early again for a second breakfast session with Joyce Dubensky. This one, on “Religion and Healthcare,” was just what the doctor ordered (couldn’t help the pun) for at least one participant, who was approached just this month to do programming in a hospital.
Sigh. And the next session on this Friday was the last session of the Retreat, the occasion to talk about “us” – this friendly and/or familial group – this “network” that has been again reformed, with new and old members, in the space and time of a week. Suffice to say that wisdom swirled around the room for a bit, and before we were ready it was time for lunch. One person suggested that this session – entitled “What is the Peacemakers Network? And how should we mobilize it?” – be the next topic for an entire Retreat. There’s just so much to talk about.
Sigh again. I had a great time with these people. These “religious peacemakers” who, in person, defy any attempt at quantifying or qualifying or boxing in what those two words might readily imply. And I know they had even more fun (and learning) with each other, as people who hold in common this loose but poignant phrase. It was nice that we went to what had become everyone’s favorite restaurant on this last day – a small, at times cooking stove smoke-filled room, that probably was someone’s kitchen/living room not too long ago. The location, in retrospect – now that I’m done laughing and devouring my “devri steak,” embodies a lot of what this week has been about: closeness, good coffee, and a for better or worse proximity to flames.
(Don’t go away; this was the last day of the Retreat; but there’s one more day of Tanenbaum in Sarajevo to come…)