Leadership Beach Retreat (The Bell Tower, LCM newsletter May 2013)

I can't imagine a better way to end a long, stressful academic year than with a relaxing couple of days at the beach with my friends in LCM. After dozens of pages of essays and a few exams, all I wanted to do was lie on the beach and read and nap -- and the moment I got to the beach, that's exactly what I did.

Of course I can't manage to be on the beach for more than three hours without getting some odd kind of splotchy sunburn. And everyone knows the beaches of North Carolina somehow stay freezing cold until Memorial Day Weekend, when the wind magically dies down and the temperature of the water jumps 10 degrees. So spending all day on the beach isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's hard to throw a Frisbee straight when it feels like God himself is trying to cool you down like a bowl of soup, and swimming is a challenge if you can't stop shivering violently until your legs have started to numb.

Luckily, lying around and attempting to throw things in the wind were not the only things we did on the beach retreat. Actually, they weren't even the most significant part of the few days we spent there in Sunset Beach. Most of the time was spent talking about LCM and our plans for next year. We talked through the schedule of the whole first semester and got excited about all we have to do in the next year.

But arguably even more important than that was the time we simply spent as a group: walking, singing, playing, eating, and enjoying one another's company. We got to recover from the stress and exhaustion of the school year by resting and working with our good friends in LCM, and there's no better way we could've done it. And at the same time, it was a chance to say farewell to all those who we won't see until August -- every event and impromptu meeting from exam time to graduation seems to turn into some kind of goodbye. And even when we're sad about the faces we're not going to see in the fall, we know the next year is going to be great, and that LCM will continue to be strong.



http://www.holytrinitychapelhill.org/belltower.pdf