Yvonne-Trusting the Process

An Invitation to Be Alive

One of my favorite Shalom memories begins with a summer thunderstorm.

I don’t remember exactly what retreat it was. It may have been the Spirituality and Sexuality retreat. What I do remember is sitting in the meditation room with everyone else, focused on whatever exercise we were doing, when one of those incredible mountain thunderstorms suddenly rolled in. The sky grew dark, rain started pounding the ground, and before long, it felt like all the life and energy in the world was happening just outside those windows.

There was this man there I’ll never forget. A Ukrainian physician from Canada. Oleh Maryniak. He was probably sixty-five or seventy years old at the time. 

Suddenly, he looked around the room and said, “How can we all be sitting here? We should be out running in the rain.”

Lawrence simply said, “Okay.”

He immediately took off all his clothes and went whooping out the back door, running through the rain, dancing across the fields, and up the mountain. Lawrence turned to the rest of us, completely deadpan, and said, “I want you all to know that that man is a respected physician and pillar of his community.”

The room erupted in laughter.

It was one of those perfect Shalom moments. Joyful, absurd, and completely free.

I hope he’s running around Heaven just as happily as he did around the back of the Meditation room. 

Years later, I found myself remembering that story during a summer storm in the co-housing community where I lived in Massachusetts. I’ve always loved thunderstorms. I grew up in Southern California, where the weather barely exists. Rain there feels more like a suggestion than an event.

One afternoon a spectacular storm rolled in, and a neighbor and I looked at each other and said, “We have to go run in the rain.”

So we did.

We tore off our clothes and ran laughing through the community, soaked to the skin and completely alive. When we came back to my porch, there stood my children, probably ten and thirteen at the time, holding a camera. They were so excited to take our picture and we happily posed. This may or may not have given them pause. No one remembers that. We all just remember how much fun we all had.

Finding the Mountain

I first came to Shalom in October of 1992.

At the time, I was in the process of separating from the father of my 2 children. We were also working to build a co-housing community, and the architect working with us had recently attended a retreat at Shalom.

When he came back, he looked completely different. I remember staring at him and asking, “What happened to you?”

He said, “I can’t explain it. You just have to go there.”

I looked at him and thought, I want whatever he’s got.

The month after my wusband moved out, I came to the Mountain. 

More than three decades later, people sometimes ask what Shalom gave me. The easy answer is a loving community and extended-release (like the pills) Ahas. There are pearls of wisdom that I’m only just feeling settle deeply into myself.  I am deeply grateful for that. 

I grew up without religion. In fact, I was taught that religion was for people who were too stupid to run their own lives. And yet, as a child, I would sneak into churches because I thought they were beautiful.

Shalom was my first experience of something that felt vaguely Christian, but not in a way that frightened me. It felt more like Christianity in action than Christianity as doctrine. It was a place where people practiced love. Not perfectly, but sincerely. It was Spiritual, in the best sense of the word. 

It was also where I first began learning one of the most important lessons of my life. As I often say, “Trust the process.” Trust that something larger is unfolding even when you don’t understand it.

My partner likes to tease me about this. He says, “That universe you’re such a fucking fan of, Yvonne…”

And he’s right. I am a fan of the universe.

The Gift and the Imperfections

People often talk about Shalom as if it were magical. In many ways, it is. But I think it’s important to remember that it’s also human.

Like everything worth loving, it has strengths and weaknesses. It has beauty and imperfections. It has cracks.

Sometimes people arrive hoping it will fix everything. That’s not what Shalom does.

What it offers is something far more valuable: a place to learn how to love, a place to grow up in ways you may never have been taught growing up, and a place where you can begin again—not perfectly, but honestly.

If someone were considering coming to a retreat, I would tell them what I tell people all the time: “Keep breathing. Trust that God, or the universe, or whatever name you use for mystery, is holding you. Stay until the end. Then decide what it means.”

Honesty, Love, and Truth

If I could say something to the current and future leaders of Shalom, it would be simple: Don’t take yourselves too seriously. Stay humble. Keep stretching yourselves and the work, but do it organically, not performatively.

And don’t be afraid of conflict. That one matters.

I live in a co-housing community, and I’ve seen firsthand what happens when people become so committed to being nice that they stop being honest. Being nice all the time can create its own kind of damage.

That doesn’t mean being cruel.

Lawrence once told me something I’ve carried ever since. He said, “Yvonne, I used to think honesty was the highest good. It was my religion. Then I learned that honesty without love can be cruelty.”

Honesty matters, but love matters too. There are many shades of truth.

Standing in your truth and simply blurting out everything you’re thinking are not the same thing. Standing in your truth requires courage. It requires knowing that someone may not like your choices. It requires being willing to become the villain in someone else’s story. Not because you’re trying to hurt anyone, but because you’re being honest about who you are.

Projection is alive and well in the world. We all do it. Every single one of us.

Which is why another lesson I’d offer is this: Learn your triggers. Better yet, make friends with them. Your triggers are trying to teach you something. Pay attention.

Dancing in the Rain

After all these years, maybe that’s what Shalom has taught me more than anything else.

Keep breathing. Trust the process. Stay humble. Tell the truth with love. Learn from your triggers. Be willing to stand in your truth.

And when the storm arrives, dance in the rain.

You never know who might be watching from the porch with a camera. Or how hard you’ll laugh when you get back.