writing

My Story of The Okoboji Writers’ Retreat

Growing up in Nebraska, I was always a little jealous of the families who vacationed every summer at Lake Okoboji. It seemed like something people of means and importance did—going to the same place each year because it was so fantastic and familiar, renewing connections made the year before.

I was certainly impressed by the stories I heard. And it was storytelling that took me to Lake Okoboji for the first time in my 59-year-old life for the Okoboji Writers’ and Songwriters’ Retreat.

With countless ideas for creative writing projects, I took my grown-up self, with memories of keeping childhood diaries, attending high school journalism camp, and writing for the Daily Nebraskan in college, to explore the dream of writing a book. In my adult years, I have filled hundreds of journal pages, written nineteen chapters for a potential book, and shared 269 blog post reflections at Being Benedictine. I am SO excited about what I learned at the Okoboji Writer’s Retreat, which will help guide me in my next steps. I will be long impacted by the creativity, gratitude, humor, music, enthusiasm, political discussions, inspiration, spontaneous mentoring, and connections formed at OWR.

Some deep-in-my-soul takeaways:

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October 3, 2025 0

Light and Shadow: Atoms of Delight

A Contemplative Day

A contemplative day
morning to dusk, I return to the window.
Heavenly light casting shadows,
I center my heart’s attention on the one thing
Tree in eternal standstill.
Earth spinning on its axis, in and out of daylight
Subtle changes, shifting shadows.
The one thing is still the one thing.
Cloaked with leaves from green to golden yellow or in winter, naked
The tree is still the tree.
Light and dark, a blanket of snow and shadow branches.
Insights shifting with the shadow.
Perspective is everything.
Shadow deepens, lengthens, lightens, disappears.
For shadow, for me, the Source of Light is essential.
The only lasting truth is change.

(written by me! © Jodi Blazek Gehr)

“Wonders are the signpost to the Wonderful. Wonders will not cease while time keeps unfolding. Time left ahead assures us of wonder’s returning.” –excerpt from Ceaseless Wonders, Ana Lisa de Jong, Living Tree Poetry, February 2025

Wonder captured me the other day as I was working in the kitchen. Our first measurable snowfall didn’t happen until February this year in southeast Nebraska. The sunlight on a backyard birch tree elicited the most intricate artwork on the fresh snow. I returned a time or two to see how the shadow shifted, deciding to make it contemplative prayer throughout the day.

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February 22, 2025 1

You Are Free: 2019 Word(s) of the Year

I’ve written before about choosing a “Word of the Year.” This year, I chose a phrase to serve as my spiritual mantra—three life-changing words that came as a gift of grace when I felt torn between two possibilities and needed to make a difficult decision.

For me, the process of discernment, especially when I have strong feelings or attachments, often begins with compulsive mental role-playing. I replay conversations—what was said, what was meant, what could have been said, and now what? Once I am able to slow down my thoughts, create some space, and breathe, I can face a decision more calmly and with a spiritual perspective. I write out my thoughts and feelings, ask questions of myself and God, and listen to what might be beneath the words. I write as prayer, knowing that, so often, an answer is revealed.

The decision I needed to make felt particularly heartbreaking. Feeling desperate, I reached out to a spiritual companion and asked for prayers.

Asking for prayers was admitting I needed help.
Asking for prayers was an act of vulnerability, humility, and surrender for me.
Asking for prayers helped me to be even more prayerful about my situation. I surrendered to God for the answer that my obsessive thinking would not bring.
Asking for prayers opened me for the words that came. Continue reading “You Are Free: 2019 Word(s) of the Year” →

March 7, 2019 2