Strength for the Weary: A Restorative Advent - online retreat, December 3-23 (latecomers welcome)

Feeling weary, dry, disoriented in this second pandemic winter?

Wondering whether and how to observe the season of Advent?

Here's an online retreat for you. 

 Strength for the Weary: A Restorative Advent

  a three-week retreat

December 3 to December 23, 2021

(from Friday in the first week of Advent to Thursday in the fourth week of Advent)

Reading this after December 3? It's fine to register late.

This gentle retreat will offer written meditations, visual art, links to music, and guidance in spiritual practice, including but not limited to prayer. 

The major themes of Advent --a season of contradictions in which we encounter both God's invitation to patience and God's urgent call to be alert and awake-- will be present in this retreat, but adapted to a time in which many of us find ourselves weary, frightened, sorrowful, burdened, or distracted, or all of these. We will acknowledge all of these hard realities. We will also receive invitations to joy and reminders of God's faithfulness.

This retreat will take place, as other online retreats have done in the past, on a blog. Only retreatants will have access to that blog. You can check in with the regularly posted retreat resources privately, at any time that is convenient for you.

This is a different kind of online retreat from a Zoom retreat, where we are all together at the same time for part of an afternoon or evening. If you are interested in that kind of retreat, see here and here.

I will post the resources mentioned above every couple of days for the three weeks of the retreat. Some of them will be suggestions or guidance for reflection, meditation, journal-keeping (verbal or visual), and prayer which you can use and adapt to your daily life and to your own spiritual practice.

Solitude or conversation or both?

As in our previous online-on-a-blog retreats, this one will include, but not require, opportunities for (written) conversation with other participants. Those conversations take place in the comments sections of the blogposts. Again: these posts, with their resources and their opportunities for comment and exchange, take place on a private blog open only to people who have registered for the retreat. Once you have registered for the retreat, you will receive instructions on getting onto the retreat blog.

It be helpful for you to check in by logging on to the retreat blog every couple of days, and to set aside time --try 20 minutes for starters-- to spend with the resources.

You will be integrating the insights and practices of the retreat into your daily life, but how, when, and how much is completely up to you.

This kind of retreat is suited for both morning persons and p.m. persons! You can adapt reflection, prayer, and practice to your personal and work schedule. I'll be there for support and information if you need a consultation.

Please write me with any questions or concerns.

Registration and cost

Registration and payment take place via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal. You do not have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method.  

--The drop-down menu below shows the payment scale.

--Discounts are available for those in financial hardship. (If the discounted rate indicated is still too costly for you, please contact me.)
--At the other end of the spectrum, the benefactor rate helps offset costs and makes discounted rates possible.

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

 

RETREAT FEES

Regular fee $125.00 USD Benefactor $250.00 USD Hardship fee $85.00 USD

 

 

For a full listing of this year's Advent retreats, see here.