BPF | Moving Together, a BASE Story

During the program evaluation at our last retreat, I was taken aback by what I heard from one participant, who was very agitated by the previous night's verbal exchange and hadn't slept all night. She felt that the group had not acknowledged an important issue during our time together. She was frustrated and wanted to leave. There seemed to me no way to resolve the issue in the little time remaining. "Don't panic, just breathe, don't panic," I said to myself as I felt a dizzying, sinking feeling in my gut.

A flurry of responses came from the group: feelings were expressed, mistakes were admitted. Yet I sensed a mood of separateness.

Earlier someone had suggested that we each share appreciations about others for the closing ritual, but in the moment this didn't seem suitable. There was a reflective pause. Then someone said that since we all acknowledged making mistakes, perhaps the asking of forgiveness would serve better as a closing ritual.

So this is what we did, and it allowed us to come together again, and to move on.

I was silent in wonder as I rode home afterwards. For six months we had been like ten people in a raft, mostly paddling together, sometimes paddling apart, and sometimes just drifting.

Once again, something unpredictably graceful had arisen to allow us to move on. I learned the importance of forgiveness, and that it follows only after the acceptance of each others' limitations in addressing our unmet needs.