Mary and I have been traveling this past week. We drove past a business last night called Auto Spa.
“Do you think they give your car a massage?” I asked.
“I know a massage is supposed to be nice,” she replied, “but the thought of a stranger touching me bothers me.”
I’m with her. I had a pedicure once and even that bothered me. It was actually the whole experience. This foreign woman kneeling at my feet subserviently just felt wrong. I know that she was trying to make the ugly beautiful, and that in itself is a beautiful thing, but for me — no.
I digress.
Kind of.
Hutchmoot is about creating beauty. In song. In written word. In visual art. In community.
And beauty is healing.
Being in the midst of beauty for a whole weekend is not unlike someone pumicing away some of the callouses that have built up — not on the feet, but on the heart.
It’s like relaxing into a warm bath with the most luxuriously scented bath salts — and feeling the whole experience take away the knots — not in weary muscles, but in a weary soul.
To go once a year and immerse myself in that has been a lifeline for me.
In 2013, we created something beautiful as a group.
Each person got a random square with some pre-drawn lines on it and a color palette for those lines. Some squares also asked the artist to write a word that had been meaningful to them that weekend. People creatively filled the square. Then, while we were in our last session, sharing and finally singing the Doxology, little elves were assembling those squares into a great picture.
Oh! The oohs and aahs when we walked out and saw it! We all signed the rabbit.
I had to scour Facebook to find a picture of the whole thing. I hope Jeremiah Lange doesn’t mind that I’m using this one that he posted.
And that, my friends, is about the best representation of Hutchmoot that I can think of.
It is visually beautiful.
It was created by a community.
The act of creating it was healing.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 
It does catch the eye.
What a lovely and powerful group project.
I’ve been visiting different blogs from the AtoZ spreadsheet and found yours today and I’ve read all the way back to A and I’ve googled Hutchmoot. I had never heard of it before today. It sounds fascinating. What really caught my eye was where it is located because just this weekend, hubby and I were in Franklin/Cool Springs for a wedding and we drove home today. I need to go back and google and read some more. Is it sponsored by a specific denomination?
Oh, I’m so glad that you learned about Hutchmoot here! It is put on by an organization called the Rabbit Room and is not under any denomination’s umbrella. At Hutchmoot, I’ve met Southern Baptists, Methodists, Assembly of God folks, Presbyterians, Anglicans — you name it! There are also people who have been wounded by the church and are not currently attending anywhere. On Sunday morning, people are encouraged to worship at the church of their choice before coming back for the final session.
In 2020, because of the pandemic, Hutchmoot (like everything else) moved to a virtual platform and they already made the decision to do the same for 2021. Stay tuned. I’ll post more information on this blog.
I recognize those Rabbit signers. That was a special trip with Maggie, and that collage project stays with me. Also, I’m grateful that I met you there.