 Fr. Vazken held up two rubber toys - one was "Blinky" the three-eyed mutant fish from the Simpsons TV show. The other, a plastic bobble-head Jesus. It was his way of welcoming everyone to the 7th annual Martin Luther King Retreat, held on the slain Civil Rights Leader's holiday weekend, organized by the In His Shoes Ministry.
Blinky, explained Fr. Vazken, is the fish that isn't supposed to be. It has evolved while swimming in the contaminated waters of Springfield's nuclear power plant. No one will admit that there's anything wrong with the water, but a mere glance at the fish tells you otherwise. Sometimes life is so contaminated, he continued, that we think things are normal, while we're growing extra eyes and mutating into different creatures. That's why Rancho La Scherpa, nestled in the beautiful coastal mountains of Santa Barbara, was selected as the site of this year's retreat. It would give a chance for participants to swim in some "clean water" and refocus on life. And indeed, Rancho La Scherpa measured up to these standards in the three days everyone 'retreated' from the world.
 Classes, lectures, discussions, movies and more discussions were all on the agenda. As for the bobble-head plastic Jesus, it stood on a table throughout the retreat as a reminder of what Christian should not be! No plastic faith here - the theme was "The Left Hand of God" - and participants explored their faith as reactions to God's command to love and respect.
A special session was spent this year exploring the work of Cesar Chavez. Following a movie and discussion about the legendary farm worker's strike to seek their basic human rights, the participants read and reviewed the 1969 Proclamation of the Delano Grape Workers for International Boycott Day, by Dolores Huerta. Making it personal, the retreat participants took pieces of the Proclamation and composed three separate poems, which also fit together to make a statement about what happened this weekend. Read the Poem(s).
A showing of Humphry Bogart's "Left Hand of God" (1955) lent itself to further discussion about values and purpose in life. But it was the Divine Liturgy, celebrated in the God's "first church," in the center of nature, brought it all together. The sermon was delivered by the late, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., via an audio recording. Calling on the "The Drum Major Instinct," Dr. King challenged the listener to stop worrying about the right or the left hand, but to do that which is the will of God.
The weekend came to an end with everyone leaving with very high spirits and energy to tackle life.
The Martin Luther King Retreat is part of the work done by In His Shoes Ministries and in particular in defining the role of the faith within the movement. To learn more about the place of Dr. King in the In His Shoes movement, and in particular with Armenian Orthodoxy, read Fr. Vazken's "How much Longer can we wait?" or listen to Fr. Vazken's Sermon @ St. Gregory, Pasadena (2001)
Read comments by participant - Lory Bedikian
See photos from the Retreat
Archives: FLYER and the REGISTRATION page. Video Invite
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