Showing posts with label contemplative practice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contemplative practice. Show all posts

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Two 9-day online retreats for Lent: Dorothy Day, March 7-15; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, March 21-29

We are offering TWO Lenten retreats this year focusing on and inspired by  the life and writings of Christians devoted both to their faith and to radical resistance against societal evil:

DOROTHY DAY and DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Join us for one or the other or both!

Simple and accessible:

one quotation or short excerpt per day
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
                                      
 on nine consecutive days

Dorothy Day retreat:
 
FRIDAY, MARCH 7 - SATURDAY, MARCH 15
 
 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer retreat: 
 
FRIDAY, MARCH 21 - SATURDAY, MARCH 29
 
 
 

Dorothy Day (1897-1980): co-founder of the Catholic Worker, an anarchist, pacifist, lay Catholic Christian movement, and founder and editor of the newspaper by the same name, she was also a person of prayer whose Roman Catholic religious observance cannot be separated from her work for social and economic justice and peace or from what Christian tradition calls “the works of mercy.”
 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945): pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi resister at a time when a great majority of the Protestant churches in Germany had allied themselves with the violent dictatorship in their nation. His short life and many writings have become known around the world, from South Africa to South Korea to the U.S and Canada.
  
For information about and registration for the Dorothy Day retreat, click here.
If you need to begin a day later than March 7, that's fine -- and you will still get the full benefit of the retreat.
For information about registration for the Dietrich Bonhoeffer retreat, click here.
 
 

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

An online retreat ("novena" = nine days) with DOROTHY DAY -

Longing for reflective and prayerful time in your busy life?
    Need some support and inspiration?
Hungry for justice and mercy?
    Wondering about models of Christian commitment
    other than the ones making the most noise these days?
If you choose to observe the season of Lent,
hoping for a life-giving Lent?

Join us for
 
Nine Days with Dorothy Day
 
an online retreat
 
Friday, March 7 - Saturday, March 14, 2025


What can Dorothy Day teach us? How can she inspire us? Join us to reflect on her life,writings,  prayer, and practice.

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) is best known as the co-founder of the Catholic Worker, an anarchist, pacifist, lay Catholic Christian movement, and founder and editor of the newspaper by the same name. Journalist, activist, mother, speaker, she was also a person of prayer whose Roman Catholic religious observance cannot be separated from her work for social and economic justice and peace or from what Christian tradition calls “the works of mercy.”

Click here for an informative essay on Dorothy Day if you want to know more.

For Christians in both the Western and Eastern traditions, the season of Lent begins next week: Monday March 3 for Orthodox Christians, March 5 (Ash Wednesday) for Catholics, Anglicans (including Episcopalians), and Protestants.

It is a season of deepened reflection and prayer,  simplicity, and generosity -- in traditional terms, "prayer, fasting, and almsgiving."
 
Some, informally, speak of Lent as a 40-day spiritual tune-up. It is like a seasonal retreat for the church. It also is preparation for the most important feast of the Christian year, Easter (aka Pascha), the celebration of Resurrection. It is meant to renew awareness of the life, teachings, acts of healing, community building, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ. (And there's more community-building and -living after Easter!)

If you observe Lent, this online retreat will nourish and support you in your Lenten practice. If you are not observing Lent and/or are from a different spiritual path or religious tradition from Christianity, you are also welcome to the retreat.

Dorothy Day's nonviolent witness, radical social analysis, community life, and spiritual practice can speak to you, especially in these challenging times.


This year, a large portion of Lent coincides with the holy month of Ramadan in Islam, during which Muslims practice deeper prayer and study, observe a strict fast (daily from sunup to sundown), and practice deeds of charity. The Muslim calendar is a lunar one, like the Jewish calendar, so the coincidence with the Christian calendars (East and West) this year is an unusual one.

What

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge

* Simple and accessible:

one quote or short excerpt per day
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
                                        on nine consecutive days

Where, when, and how

* This online retreat takes place on a members-only blog.

This means the blog is accessible only to people who have registered and signed onto the blog. It will be private and will not be searchable on the internet. Conversations (taking place in the comments section of the blog posts) will be among participants and closed to all other persons.
* You'll sign onto the blog just once (I will send easy directions once you have registered) and the blog will recognize you after that whenever you click its home page url. You do need to bookmark that home page once you have access to the blog, so that you can find it again easily.

* You will visit the blog daily for the nine days of the retreat but you can log into the retreat at any hour of the day or night that is convenient  for you.

* Have your retreat time at home, on a break at work, in a coffee shop, on vacation, in your daily life: read, reflect, meditate, and pray with the retreat materials in a way that suits your schedule.

* You'll need 20 minutes a day of focused time (any time, day or night) and a computer or tablet with internet access. More than 20 minutes (say, 40 minutes) would be even more enriching, but 20 mns will be fine if that's what you've got!
 
Register and pay

Register and pay in a single transaction
using the secure PayPal button below.


Note: You can use the PayPal button and its secure connection to pay with a credit or debit card even if you don't have a PayPal account. The button offers you a choice of payment modalities. The PayPal mechanism will record your name and e-mail address and serve as your registration. You will receive an automated acknowledgment from PayPal and a also personal e-mail acknowledgment from me.

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Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

If you are in a situation of financial stress and the regular rate is too much for you, please use the hardship rate on the menu above or write me so that we can arrange for a payment plan or a scholarship. Don't let your lack of money prevent you from seeking spiritual support and nourishment here. If on the other hand you wish to help make possible more scholarships and discounts, just check the benefac
tor rate.




More FAQ...

Do I have to talk to other people on this bloggy course-retreat? I'm a very private person.


See the answer to the next question.


Can I get some support here? I want some company.


This online offering offers you a choice; it is up to you to find your preferred balance between the solitary and the communal, between privacy and solidarity.

You can and may remain private and just read the blog and use the spiritual practices and meditations on your own. Nobody will force you to speak or disclose who you are.

Or you can and may take part in conversation with other participants. Conversation takes place in writing, through the comments feature on the blog posts. 

Please be prepared to observe confidentiality and to respect other participants' diverse experiences and outlooks.

Use the retreat according to your personality and your circumstances. The online retreat is like a room in which you are welcome to sit in the company of others and to be either visible or invisible.


What, no Zoom? 

Because this is a meditative experience and requires time for reading and pondering, and because participants will be from different time zones, the best format for this offering is a blog.

 

I really, really, wanted
to take that Bonhoeffer retreat last December
but couldn't do it.

Last December, I offered a similar nine-day retreat, inspired by the life, writings, and practice of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor and theologian who resisted the Nazi regime and was executed just weeks before the end of World War II at the age of 39. 
YES! We are offering a Bonhoeffer retreat again, from Friday, March 21 to Saturday, March 29. For information and registration, click here.


 

Friday, August 2, 2024

Meditations with Howard Thurman: a choice of online retreats

Longing for some reflective time and space? Hoping for something that fits your schedule? Interested in (re-)discovering the life and words a wise guide? 
 
Join us for one (or two) 
of the following three
online retreats.

 
 
Scroll down for an overview of Dr. Thurman's life and work
and for registration for the retreats..

A LABOR DAY NOTE: OPTIONS 1 and 2 are now past.
Option 3 below is still ahead of us. Sign up now!

Option 1:
 

Meditations with Howard Thurman

A morning retreat on Zoom

Friday, August 16, 2024

at 7:30 a.m. Pacific Time / 8:30 Mountain Time / 
9:30 Central Time / 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time
(hello, early birds!)
 
We will spend two hours listening to selected reflections by Howard Thurman, pondering them in meditative silence, sharing some of our responses in conversation, and enjoying some related images and music. (Yes, there will be a little stretch break in the middle.)

Option 2: 

Meditations with Howard Thurman

An evening retreat on Zoom

Monday, August 19, 2024

at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time / 6:30 Mountain Time / 
7:30 Central Time / 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time
(hello, East Coast night owls!)

Same content as in Option 1: We will spend two hours listening to selected reflections by Howard Thurman, pondering them in meditative silence, sharing some of our responses in conversation, and enjoying some related images and music. (Yes, there will be a little stretch break in the middle.)
 
Option 3:

Nine Days with Howard Thurman
 
An online retreat on your own time
September 10-18, 2024
 
Got 20 minutes a day? Visit the retreat blog any time, day or night,
 for nine consecutive days
 
The retreat takes place on a blog accessible only to those who have registered. Signing on to the blog is easy. (And if needed, tech help is available from your friendly retreat leader.) For each of the nine days, you will find on the blog:
one short excerpt from the writings of Howard Thurman
one spiritual exercise
one prayer

Conversations can take place in the comments to each blog post, or you may choose to remain silent and anonymous.

 * * * * * * *

Howard Thurman (1899-1981), a philosopher, educator, theologian, and pastor, was an African American born in the segregated South during the Jim Crow era. Nourished by the rich traditions of the Black Church and ordained as a Baptist minister, he was deeply influenced by Quaker thought, especially the mysticism and nonviolence of Rufus Jones. He was also a pioneer in interreligious understanding. His writings --books, prayers, meditations, and sermons-- are rooted in Christianity yet accessible and pertinent to people whose wisdom path is "spiritual but not religious."

Howard Thurman exercised a deep influence on some of the Civil Rights Movement's leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He traveled to India to meet Gandhi in the 1930s with the first group of African Americans to do so. Thurman served as the first Black Dean of Marsh Chapel, the university chapel at Boston University, and founded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, a multicultural, multiracial, and interfaith congregation in San Francisco which is still in existence today. Thurman's book Jesus and the Disinherited (1949) predated Black liberation theology by a generation.

See also here.

* * * * * * *

There is a sliding scale for the retreat fees, as you will see below.

If even the "hardship rate" is too high, write me 
so we can arrange a full or partial scholarship.
If you wish to register at the "benefactor" rate, 
your fee will help offset the cost of scholarships 
and will enable me to keep offering these retreats
 
PLEASE REGISTER AND PAY HERE.  
Remember there are three options. 
Sign up for the one you want!

 

Thurman morning retreat 08/16/24 Zoom - pick one rate
Message (optional):
 
 
Thurman evening retreat 08/19/24 Zoom - pick one rate
Message (optional):
 
 
Thurman 9-day (Sept. 10-18) online retreat - pick one rate
Message (optional):
 
 Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration. 
 
In August and September, we are also offering an online (Zoom) group on grieving and grief. See here for details.
 

Monday, February 10, 2020

Lent 2020 online retreats: one long (Bonhoeffer), three short (Stringfellow, Soelle, Isasi-Diaz)

art by Thomas Merton
Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in Christian churches of the Western traditions, is February 26.
 Please join us for one or more of our online retreats this Lent.

Lent, the 40-day season preceding Easter, is the Christian church's annual long retreat.

We go on this retreat --not necessarily to a different geographical place, but to a zone of mindfulness and practice that simplifies our life and peels away its non-essentials-- in order to reconnect, deeply, with God, with Christ, with the Spirit at the heart of God's life, our life, and the life of the world.

We clear space and time to make room for the God of comfort and surprises, and to remember what is deepest and truest in our lives.

 
We have 
four online retreats for you to choose from this Lent. 

We are offering one long online retreat, lasting all of Lent and Holy Week, and three nine-day online retreats. The long retreat commits you to checking in with the retreat resources three times a week. The short retreat offers retreat resources every day for nine days.

All of the retreats have a structure and a schedule, but they are flexible enough to integrate into your daily life: you are the one who decides when and where to read and pray with the materials in the retreat (day or night, at home or elsewhere) and how to apply the invitations to practice.

 Click on the name of each retreat below for further information (about the person and about the retreat) and registration.

Would you like to explore the life and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer through short readings and spiritual exercises? A Lent-long online retreat invites you to do so. It is a retreat, not a course, so the readings are relatively short and the focus is meditative and intended to give you a lens through which to live the Christian season of Lent this year.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 - SATURDAY, APRIL 18:

Lent with Dietrich Bonhoeffer (includes Holy Week and Easter Week)
Not sure you want to go on a long retreat, even online? Would you prefer a shorter, more intense experience? If so, we have three offerings for you, each of them nine days long and each inspired by the writings and life of a 20th century or  20th-21st century Christian from the Northern Hemisphere. You may choose one or more.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4 - THURSDAY, MARCH 12:
William Stringfellow: Nine Days in Lent
MONDAY, MARCH 16 - TUESDAY, MARCH 24:
Ada María Isasi-Díaz: Nine Days in Lent
FRIDAY, MARCH 27 - SATURDAY, APRIL 4:
Dorothee Soelle: Nine Days in Lent
All of these online retreats call us to simplicity, mindfulness, and holiness. Like the season of Lenten itself, they invite us to repentance and conversion, but also to joy. 

Peace be with you. Please join us on the journey of Lent.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Lent with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Online Retreat

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian pastor in the Lutheran tradition, scholar, and resister against  the Nazi regime, was executed for his resistance activities in 1945, at the age of 39; his writings and life have become well known around the world, from South Africa to South Korea. 

Here in the U.S., many are reading his works again --or for the first time-- both because of the times in which we live and because of a couple of recently published biographies.

The Christian season of Lent begins tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, March 1, in the Western Christian churches. (The Eastern Orthodox season of Great Lent nearly coincides with Lent in the Western church this year and began on February 27.) Lent is in many ways a long retreat for the whole church, a six-week preparation for the celebration of Easter. It is a time of intensified or more intentional prayer, greater simplicity of life, and giving to others, especially those who are poor.

This year, we invite you to


Lent with Dietrich Bonhoeffer
An Online Retreat
 March 5-April 21, 2017

The first full week of the retreat begins this coming Sunday, March 5, but there will be a "soft opening" tomorrow, March 1, for those who want to jump right in and get started on Ash Wednesday.


This retreat will place us in conversation with the life and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is a retreat, not a class, though we will certainly learn from the retreat and from each other. Our lens will be a meditative one in which both prayer and critical thinking will be welcome and encouraged. There will be readings, but they will not be as long as they would be for a course. In addition to readings, the retreat will include some musical and visual resources.


The retreat will offer spiritual exercises based on Bonhoeffer's life and work and oriented toward the Christian season of Lent.

Read on for further details, 
registration information, 
and FAQ.

Focus and themes

Every week in the retreat will have an overarching theme or cluster of themes related to Bonhoeffer's life and work.

Prelude (Ash Wednesday and the next three days):

Why Bonhoeffer? Why this retreat?
With an introduction to Bonhoeffer's life and some Psalms
Week 1 (March 5): 
Bonhoeffer's context and ours (with an examination of the Nazification of Germany, but also of Bonhoeffer's family and formation)
Week 2 (March 12):
Jesus Christ, discipleship, and grace
Week 3 (March 19):
Life together: community, church, resistance
Week 4 (March 26):
Friendship, trust, commitment: Bonhoeffer and relationships
Week 5 (April 2):
Travel, ecumenism, inspiration: Bonhoeffer beyond German borders, from Rome to Harlem and Sweden to South Africa
Week 6 (April 9, Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion, and into Holy Week):
Suffering, sacrifice, and the cross
Week 7 (April 16, Easter):
Heirs to Bonhoeffer, friends of Christ: living Resurrection.
We will ponder each theme or cluster of themes through Bonhoeffer's writings and other resources and also reflect on and pray with these themes as they are manifest in our own lives.

To register

1) If you prefer to pay by check, write me, Jane Redmont, at readwithredmont@earthlink.net and I will acknowledge your registration and send you the mailing address. I will also notify you when I receive your check.

OR (quicker and easier)

2) If you wish to pay by credit or debit card or with a PayPal account, simply register and pay in a single transaction using the secure PayPal button below.

Note: You can use that PayPal button and its secure connection to pay with a credit or debit card even if you don't have a PayPal account. The PayPal mechanism will record your name and e-mail address and serve as your registration. You will also receive an automated acknowledgment from PayPal and a personal e-mail acknowledgment from me.

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

If you are in a situation of financial stress, please use the discount rates on the menu below or write me so that we can arrange for a payment plan.

If you wish to help make possible more scholarships and discounts, just check the benefactor rate.




Retreat fees (choose one)




FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
 
An online retreat? What's that?


It's a retreat in daily life with resources and guidance online. You'll need a computer or tablet and an internet connection. You'll be using the computer to make the retreat, but you won't be spending the whole retreat staring at the computer.

The beauty of an online retreat is that you can check in with the retreat on your own schedule, at whatever hour of the night or day works for you. You do need to devote some time to it, but if you have 20-30 minutes two or three times a week, you can benefit from the retreat. You can also spend more time on the retreat if you wish, or check in daily. The retreat is structured to work for a two or three times a week check-in as well as for daily participation. It's up to you.

How does an online retreat work?

The retreat offers daily resources online on a blog. More specifically, a closed blog.

What's a closed blog? It's a blog like this, but it is not public: it is open only to those whom the blog owner-administrator (that's me, Jane, the retreat facilitator) has signed in.

In other words, the retreat blog is not open to anybody wandering around the internet. It is not "searchable": random web surfers will not be able to view either the blog or our conversations in the comments. Conversations among retreatants remain private.

Do I have to talk to other people on this retreat? I'm a very private person.

See the answer to the next question.


Can I get some support here? I want some company.


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.

You can and may remain private and just read the blog and use the spiritual practices and meditations on your own. Nobody will force you to speak or disclose who you are.

Or you can and may take part in conversation with other retreatants. Conversation during the online retreat takes place in writing, through the comments feature on the blog posts of the retreat blog. Please be prepared to observe confidentiality and to respect other participants' diverse experiences and outlooks.

Use the retreat according to your personality and your circumstances. The online retreat is like a room in which you are welcome to sit in the company of others and to be either visible or invisible.

What's with the March 1 /March 5 double start date?

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which falls on March 1 this year. The first full week of Lent begins Sunday, March 5. We all get started on Lent in different ways despite (or because of) the calendar. Some of us are a little slower than others. Get started on the retreat any time from March 1 on. Try to be with us on retreat by March 5 at the latest. But if you're a day or two late, you can still join us.

And what about that theme for the first week of Easter? I thought this was a Lenten retreat.

It is. But the celebration of the Passion and Resurrection are one. Lent doesn't just lead to the Last Supper, the Cross, and the silent closed tomb. It leads to Easter, the open tomb, and the proclamation of enduring and risen life.

The retreat will continue into the first week of Easter for those who desire. This will give us an opportunity to celebrate Easter together and to reflect on the meaning of Bonhoeffer's life and writings in the context of Resurrection.

Also, it is likely that some of our participants will be clergy and lay leaders, for whom April 13-16 will be the most intense and demanding days of the church year. These ministers will need quiet and rest on Easter Monday (April 17) and some personal retreat time after.

What do you mean by "spiritual exercises"?

Spirituality --including Christian spirituality-- involves our entire life. It is bodily as well as mental. It involves our imagination and also our actions. It is about practice, not just thinking.

A spiritual exercise, therefore, may be a prayer or meditation, or a reading assignment or way of reading; but it may also be a piece of writing in a journal, a new or repeated way of interacting with others, a way of gazing or focusing, a practice of fasting or mindful eating, a new way of creating, a daily habit.

Retreat designer and facilitator

Jane Redmont is a retreat leader, spiritual director, 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 justice and in ecumenical and interreligious relations all her life. She has read and taught the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer for many years, including in a college course called "Radical Theologians of Europe and North America" and an online course called "Radical Hope in Hard Times." She began her academic study of Bonhoeffer in her first semester of Ph.D studies with a paper entitled "Preaching in the Storm: The Word from the Pulpit and the Word in the World in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer." She serves as a Congregational Consultant for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and is the author of When in Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life.

Questions? Concerns? Write Jane here.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Nine days with Dorothee Soelle: online "novena retreat" begins August 31

Longing for some prayerful and reflective time in your busy life?
Struggling with the challenge of hope in hard times?
Join us:
Dorothee Soelle:
An Online Novena Retreat


Dorothee Soelle (also spelled Sölle) (1928-2003) was a German theologian, poet, peace activist, Protestant and ecumenical Christian, spouse and mother, teacher, socialist, and from mid-life on, feminist. She was the author of The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian, Revolutionary Patience, Theology for Skeptics, and many other works. Soelle wrote in an accessible manner --mostly in prose, sometimes in poems-- and not in the form of long academic treatises. Her chosen topics, though, were often challenging: silence and language in the struggle to name God; suffering and the vulnerability of God; Jesus the risk-taker and the community of the friends of Jesus; history, evil, and Christian political engagement; the church as community of memory, resistance, and hope.

What, when, where

* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, August 31-September 8, 2015, with the help of the writings of Dorothee Soelle (1928-2003).

* Simple and accessible:
one quote per day
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
* At home, in your daily life: read, meditate, and pray in a way that suits your schedule.

* You'll need 20 minutes a day of focused time and a computer or tablet with internet access.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

"Novena retreat" ?

A novena is a sequence of nine successive days of prayer–usually prayers of either petition or thanksgiving. It is generally a public and popular spiritual practice and is found most often in the Roman Catholic religious tradition.

I am using the word “novena,” meaning nine days, as part of the description of this retreat to indicate that it is nine days long and involves daily meditation and prayer.


Dorothee Soelle was a Protestant in the Lutheran tradition, and the novena retreat is ecumenical, accessible to Christians of any background or affiliation, and open to all. It is a new twist on the traditional novena.


An online retreat? How does that work?

* The retreat offers daily resources (the quotes, spiritual exercises, and prayers mentioned above, with some images as well to nourish you visually) online on a blog. More specifically, a closed blog.

* What's a closed blog? It's a blog like this, but it is not public: it is open only to those whom the blog owner-administrator (that's me) has signed in. In other words, it is not open to anybody wandering around the internet. It is not "searchable": random web surfers will not be able to view either the blog or our conversations in the comments.

* Once you register for the retreat, I will send instructions for the one-time-only sign-in mechanism. After that, the blog will always recognize you

Registration

To register, write me, Jane Redmont, stating your intention to take the retreat, and make your payment. 

Cost and payment

* $60 if you register by Sunday, August 23.

* $75 if you register between August 24 and August 31, the day the retreat begins.
It's best to register before the 21st, but you are still welcome if you sign up at the 11th hour!
* Discounts are available if you are in financial hardship. Talk to me.

* Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration, by check or online electronic payment.

If you prefer to pay by check, I will send you the mailing address when you write me to register.

If you prefer to pay online by credit card or PayPal, please click below to pay via the Redmont Retreats secure PayPal account. (Note: you don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method.)


Retreat fee (choose one)


Privacy and community

During the retreat, you can remain private and just read the blog and use the quotes, spiritual exercises, and prayers on your own.

or

If you are more extroverted and communal or in need of companions on your retreat, you can  share your thoughts, experiences, and questions via the comments function on the blog and engage in conversation with other retreatants and with the retreat facilitator.


Full  listing of summer online retreats here.


This announcement of the Dorothee Soelle retreat was originally posted on July 8.