Destination Unknown:

My Thoughts

        So there we were, on our way to Ste-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson (just near Val David) for yet another young adults retreat, this time entitled Destination Unknown.  I was in an over-packed car with three of my best friends, driving up a dark and winding road.  I sat in quiet contemplation, thinking about what I would be talking about in the next two days. Unfortunately, my contemplation was interrupted by a loud scream when our driver, Lisa, saw a dog run out on the road and start barking at us.  Of course, we weren’t exactly driving at that point; we had stopped because we were lost.  Yet Lisa felt the need to scream at a decibel that, if it were but one octave higher, only the dog would have been able to hear.  The rest of us broke out in laughter. Needless to say, we didn’t let her forget that little experience throughout the weekend while the rest of us recuperated from having our eardrums blown clear out.

        From that point on, the mood was set for Destination Unknown – a mood of fun, adventure and discovery.  It was not what I had expected.  I had expected another weekend retreat where I would sleep for maybe a total of maybe five hours, long for a shower, and occasionally yearn to go home to my bed.  But this was not the case. Rather, I spent a full weekend with my best friends in a beautiful cottage that was filled with good eats and a constant musical show held by any three of us.  But more than that, I walked away with certain questions answered, but more importantly new questions that only I could answer.

        The whole point of Destination Unknown was to ask ourselves what are we called to do as Christians and as citizens of the world.  This question is quite simple, but the answer is certainly not. The twelve of us spent the weekend trying to answer this question through discussions and workshops.  Every person who took part in the retreat was paired up with a friend; together, the team was responsible for creating a workshop. My partner was Anne-Marie.  We had a little bit of trouble getting started, but once we got the ball rolling we created a workshop centred around masks. The concept of masks came to us from our discussion was about who we are and how we want to be seen.  Everyone wears a mask:  We all have secrets about ourselves that we want to hide, while at the same time we try to be things we are not; we wear masks. But we realized that to truly do what we are called to do, we must take off our mask.  So for our workshop, we asked everyone to cut out a mask.  On one side, retreatants were asked to draw how they feel they portray themselves to the world; that was the outside.  On the inside, they were asked to draw what – or rather who – they truly are.  Afterward we invited anyone who wished to take the floor to discuss what they wanted to share. Perhaps not all of us were ready to take off our masks completely, myself included – this is, after all, a journey that will last much longer that a single weekend – but it was a beginning.

        The workshop – and the entire retreat – marked the start of a journey to which I myself do not know the end.  The destination is, in fact, unknown. And yet I am not afraid. I am not questioning my choices because, as we talked about that weekend, God is with me, with all of us, and He does have a plan for us, as long as we choose to accept it.

~ Jeffrey Bartlett

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