By Thea Jarvis

When Al M. made his first Beginning Experience two years ago, he was unhappy and dissatisfied with the direction his life was taking. Widowed for 10 years, with a brief remarriage and subsequent divorce added to his lists of debts, Al knew “there was more in life for me.” He understood that “God put me on this earth to be happy, joyous and free,” but he felt none of these emotions.

Carol N. went into the Beginning Experience to satisfy a friend’s need for encouragement and companionship on the three-day weekend that is uniquely structured for the widowed, divorced and separated. She had watched her husband’s five year struggle with leukemia sap him of strength and finally, life, and had ridden her own roller coaster of despair, unemployment, and depression. But after six months of counseling, Carol didn’t hesitate to tell others, “I’m in great shape.”

What both Al and Carol discovered during their Beginning Experience was the courage to face feelings that had long lain dormant in their effort to go on, as painlessly as possible, with lives that had been touched by pain.

“I realized I had never allowed myself to lose control of my emotions,” Carol recalled recently of her weekend experience. “If I did, I couldn’t function.” With two children to bring up and a full-time job to hold down, she hadn’t the luxury to grieve.

On the weekend, “I cried for three solid days, something I hadn’t let myself do except in the car, shower, places the kids wouldn’t notice,” she said, remembering how surprised she had been to find the sadness still there, like a lump in her throat she had tried to cover with a cough.

Another shock for Carol was the realization that “I was still very angry,” an emotion she, like most widows and widowers, was loathe to face.

“If you’re divorced you have the right to be angry. But my husband didn’t want to leave; I didn’t have the right to be angry,” she felt at the same time.

Al, too, saved an anger he had long tried to bury.

“I had a lot of anger from both experiences. I was angry with my first wife for dying and pushing me into a second marriage. I was angry with my second wife for leaving, angry at God for letting these things happen when here I was, playing by the rules,” he explained. “The weekend helped me recognize the fact that I was that angry. Then I was able to let it go.”

Al and Carol felt so strongly that the Beginning Experience was a major breakthrough in their lives that they are now members of the Atlanta team that has presented three BE weekends over the past two years. The next weekend is scheduled for March 8-10 at Forest Hills Mountain Resort in Dahlongea.

Patterned loosely on Marriage Encounter and Happening models, the Beginning Experience is a renewal that focuses on the passage of widowed, divorced and separated participants through grief to a new beginning, paralleling Christ’s movement from death to resurrection. The format is a journey through self-encounter, symptoms of spiritual death, trusting self, others and God. Private written reflection and small group dialogue facilitate the journey. It is an ecumenical weekend.

BE has its roots in the Catholic Renewal Renewal Center of North Texas, where the need and potential for such a program was recognized and guidelines written to implement it as a weekend experience. The model was well-received and eventually introduced to retreat and renewal houses outside of Texas.

The first Atlanta-area residents to make the Beginning Experience did so in February 1982 at the Benedictine Retreat Center in Cullman, Alabama. Six months later, a larger group returned to Cullman for another BE weekend, and from that number 10 participants were invited to form the Atlanta team that would begin the renewals locally.

The Atlanta team met once a month through March of 1983, getting to know each other on a personal and social basis. The national BE office eventually sent a team from Houston for an intense training weekend and the group was told they were ready to hold the first Beginning Experience in Atlanta that spring.

Speaking as an old hand at team interaction and BE weekends, Al M. views the renewals as “part of my continuing education.” Since team members themselves go through each step of the weekend process along with new participants, they have a unique opportunity to continue work on problem areas and learn from those they are now leading on the BE journey.

“Most times, people are successful in identifying the fact that they’re not different, not unique. Their problems aren’t special just to them or a plot of God against them,” he said, remembering his own awakening and how relieved he felt to know others had the same thoughts and emotions.

This group dynamic of hearing others’ stories while learning to face and accept inner feelings is key to healing in the Beginning Experience.

“People told me there was something about me they had never seen before, that I had never looked so good or at peace with myself,” Carol N. remembered, acknowledging that once she had shed her burden of anger, guilt and fear it was reflected in her physical appearance. “It was true. I felt good about me for the first time in a long time.”

Group leaders are quick to point out that the Beginning Experience is “not a hand-holding session by any means,” but an attempt to help those who have experienced the loss of a spouse to face feelings of grief and get on with their lives.

Reservations for the upcoming March weekend, which is offered at a cost of $55 including meals and lodging, may be sent to The Beginning Experience, 3175 Hathaway Court NE, Atlanta 30341, with a deposit fee of $10. Financial assistance is available to those who would otherwise be prevented from making the weekend. For further information on the Beginning Experience, call 493-3909 or 493-8761.