The serious
Below, I’ll offer brief notes on my personal interpretations of the four messages shared by Pastor David Huynh during this retreat.
Jesus heals the leper
I took leprosy to symbolize any condition that makes you feel helpless and alone—for me, this might be something like knee pain, or maybe just conflicts with friends. The message, then, is that even when you’re stuck in such a situation, you must never lose hope. Instead, be like the leper and believe that one day, help will arrive. Moreover, the leper also shows us that we must be proactive about securing this help (i.e. asking Jesus first rather than passively waiting for him to help), and that we cannot expect it to come to us solely of its own accord.
God’s quiet whisper to Elijah
Sometimes, we expect life lessons to come in the form of dramatic/traumatic events when in reality, we stand to learn the most when we spend some quiet time just meditating on ourselves. For instance, I recently realized in such a session that for the past three years, my avoidant and procrastinating habits have bled into my relationships with friends and hurt them without even realizing it. The damage these habits caused was an insidious kind that slowly drives friends further and further, but it’s difficult to notice without ample self-reflection.
The prodigal son
When I heard this story for the first time, I had difficulty understanding the father’s treatment of his younger son, which I perceived to be highly irrational. This son who asked for an early inheritance—essentially wishing you were dead—only to squander it all, and you show him mercy?
I also thought the older brother had done nothing wrong. After all, he’s done so much work for his father—doesn’t he deserve some rewards in return?
When I heard the story again, both these perspectives changed. I still think the father’s actions are irrational, but I now realize that’s precisely the point—the perfect love is unconditional, and therefore irrational. It’s impossible for any human to realize such a love as even the most gracious among us has only a finite amount of patience to spare, but we should always strive to get closer and closer to this ideal.
The older brother reinforces this point, as he treats his relationship with his father in a very rational and transactional way: i.e. “if I offer ‘love’ to you, I deserve more of your ‘love’ in return” but he weighs this love in terms of material rewards rather than genuine spiritual connection.
The core message conveyed by both brothers, then, is that the perfect love is irrational.
- Although reason dictates the father should refuse his younger son, his paternal love refuses reason.
- Meanwhile, the older brother fails to recognize that, in rationalizing his father’s love, his actual love for his father is no stronger than his brother’s.
Mathematically, we might model a “rational” love as a system in which each person gives as much love as they’re given from others. Although such a system can generate an infinite amount of love via cycles, this is rare practically and therefore we require an “infinite” source of love to maintain stability, a role filled by God.
The living water
Kinda forgot my thoughts on this one…
The fun
On the first night, HOC5 hosted a game night where we played Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, BS Poker, then Castlefall. The last game was definitely the most fun with both Phil and Jasmine joining in as well, and in total we played from around 9:30 to 11:30.
I spent most of the second day with HOC1. In the morning, we played some Hold’em (which I wasn’t super into), then a few of us—Leon, Jonathan, Rebecca, Davina, and I—broke off and started playing our own game of Cambio, which I found much more entertaining.
During free time, we initially went to an aux gym to play basketball, but that turned out rather boring so I left to play more cards with HOC1. We then played Castlefall for the first time and everyone seemed to have a blast with it, which was great! After a while, we found out the rec center had opened so we quickly rushed over to play some pickleball and badminton (Leon, Davina, Rebecca and I) which was really fun as well. We spent our entire second and last evening playing Cambio then Castlefall with maybe 30 minutes of pure talking at the end, and I went back to my dorm around 3:00 AM.
Waking up at 6:30 that day, I felt oddly energized, and we squeezed in our last few rounds of Castlefall before we had to say our final goodbyes—at least, until next year. See you all soon!