Lent and Holy Week, February 13 to March 31, 2013
THOMAS MERTON, Companion on the Way
an online retreat
The retreat
An online retreat examining contemplation and struggle in the life, writings, and prayer of Thomas Merton, with guidance and opportunity for prayer and practice.
We will journey through the Christian season of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday,* with writings by Thomas Merton (Fr. Louis), Trappist monk, poet, spiritual teacher, hermit, and social critic.
* There will be an option to continue and conclude April 1-4, for those who have church ministry responsibilities through Easter Sunday (and a need rest on Easter Monday!) and who may prefer to engage in the final retreat meditations during Easter Week.Each week will feature short passages from Merton's writings on themes of prayer, war and peace, solitude, nature, community, suffering, and new life.
The readings (they will be brief: this is a retreat, not a course) will come twice a week, usually on Wednesday morning and Saturday evening.
Readings will be coordinated with Lenten observance. Along with the writings by Merton will be suggestions for reflection, meditation, journal-keeping (verbal or visual), and prayer which participants can use and adapt to their daily life and to their own spiritual practice.
Like all our online retreats, this one will include, but not require, opportunities for conversation with other participants.
Registration and cost
Cost: $250.
$200 for those who register by February 1.
Reading this February 8 or 9? See here for Snowstorm Special!
Also, scholarship and sliding scale are available for those in financial difficulty. Please write me and we will find a way to make this retreat affordable for you!
Payment is non-refundable.
To register and for information on where to send your check, write Jane at readwithredmont@earthlink.net.
An online retreat? How does that work?
By offering the retreat resources (meditations, images, guidelines for spiritual practice, insights on prayer) online on a blog. More specifically, a closed blog.
What's a closed blog? It's a blog open only to those whom the blog owner-administrator (in this case the retreat facilitator) allows in. In other words, it is not open to anybody wandering around the internet. Random web surfers will not be able to view either the blog or our conversations in the comments. Once you register for the course, I will send instructions on the one-time sign-in mechanism. After that, the retreat blog will always recognize you.
Do I have to talk to other people on the retreat? I'm a very private person. AND/OR
Can I get some support here? I need to talk.
Jane's online retreats offer you a choice: it is up to you to find your preferred balance between the solitary and the communal, between privacy and solidarity.
Use the retreat according to your personality and your circumstances. The retreat is like a room in which you are welcome to sit in the company of others and to be either visible or invisible.
You can and may make conversation part of the retreat experience. (Conversation on the retreat takes place via the comments on the blog posts of the retreat blog.) You can and may, however, remain private and just read the blog and use the practices and meditations on your own. Nobody will force you to speak.
Please be prepared to observe confidentiality and respect for other participants' diverse experiences and outlooks.
Jane Redmont is the author of When in Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life. She is a spiritual director, retreat leader, pastoral worker, writer, and theologian who has worked in campus, urban, and parish ministries. An Episcopal Christian, she was also formed in the Catholic tradition and has Jewish and Unitarian Universalist family roots. She has been involved in work for social justice and ecumenical and interreligious relations all her life and has taught college, seminary, and graduate courses in Christian history, theology, spirituality, religious pluralism, and women's studies.
Jane has been reading Merton for forty years, taught his work, and used his writings as a help to prayer and meditation both for herself and for others.
6 comments:
This would be awesome, but 250.00-=that would drain me financially. fr. river sims
Hi, Fr. River ! Look more carefully at the retreat description: there is a sliding scale and a scholarship option. Write me at readwithredmont@earthlink.net and we'll figure out a way to make this affordable for you!
P.S. I don't have an e-mail for you, but have sent you a Facebook message.
Has the retreat started? Where do I log on?
Jan
Jan, check your e-mail - I just sent something out.
63 years ago when I read Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain. I was much moved by the book. I owned and read all the books he wrote before he passed away.
Today I am upset because I ask myself why did he have to run off and try to learn about another religion.
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