Watch this space
for an announcement of our next online retreat
Spiritual Practices
for Troubled Times
Something we all need.
I'll be facilitating the retreat
as well as
journeying and practicing with you.
Beginning the week of June 1, 2025.
 |
| Cosmos through fence, August 2021 (c) JCR |
Join us for one or more of these online offerings --some longer, some shorter-- for spiritual reflection, deep learning, prayer, and daily practice.
Click on the links at the titles below (first line of each title) to learn more about each offering: three retreats, one course-retreat.
A Healing Lent
February 26-April 1
CANCELED DUE TO COVID -
but we're on for the other retreats, which begin
later in the season. See below!
2. A GENTLE LENT:
Living Ancient Practices Today
March 8-25
3. NINE DAYS WITH DOROTHEE SOELLE
a retreat for
marginal, committed, radical, and/or curious Christians
March 23-31
Challenge and Wonder
a course-retreat *
April 19-June 23
* Less reading and more spiritual practice than a course (class), more reading and critical thinking than a retreat. Open to persons of any (or no) religious background.
Click on the titles above for details and registration.
Do you want to observe Lent in some form, but can't make a five or six week commitment to a Lenten retreat, even an online one?
Did you get a late start on Lent?
Do you need a protected space with support and resources for observing Lent?
Not sure you know what Lent is about any more?
Wondering whether and how those three ancient Lenten practices of "prayer, fasting, and almsgiving" can have meaning in your life?
Living Ancient Practices Today
Wednesday, March 8
to Saturday, March 25
In this season, can we learn anew to be gentle with ourselves as we discover --or remember-- that God is tender and merciful toward us?
 | |
| Aloysius Hsu, SJ, “Annunciation" Journal of the Asian American Theological Forum (2019) |
 |
| brush art by Thomas Merton |
Join us for a time of reflection, practice, and prayer.
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 is the author of The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance; Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian; Revolutionary Patience; Theology for Skeptics; and other books.
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; Christians and the Shoah (Holocaust); the church as community of memory, resistance, and
hope.
This retreat will be especially helpful if you
What, when, where, how
* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, beginning Thursday, March 23, 2023.one quotation or short excerpt from DS's writings per day* 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.
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
on nine consecutive days
Register here
An online retreat? How does that work?
* The retreat offers daily resources (the quotations, spiritual exercises, and prayers mentioned above, with some images as well to nourish you visually, and sometimes a piece of music too) online on a blog. This is the primary resource for the retreat. All retreat materials will be posted on this blog as the retreat proceeds.
* The initial, one-time-only sign-on to the retreat blog is easy. Once you have signed up a first time, the retreat blog will recognize you and you can check in any time. Only retreatants with have access to the blog, which is private and not searchable on the internet.
* Once you register for the retreat, I will send instructions for
the one-time sign-on mechanism. After you first sign on to the retreat
blog, the blog will always recognize you.
Privacy and community
During the retreat, you can remain anonymous, invisible, and silent and just read the blog and use the quotations, spiritual exercises, images, music, and prayers on your own, without writing any comments about them or sharing your experiences or reactions.
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 (written) conversation with
other retreatants and with me (the retreat facilitator).
Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.
 |
| Jane Redmont (c) May 2016 |
 |
| Thich Nhat Hanh |
mindfulness----How can we better navigate conversation and conflict online?
rhythms of online and offline times
modes of conversation
impulse control
self-care and care for others
raising energy for justice
meditative moments
(Yes, we can call all these "health and wellness practices" too.)
Our task and challengeWhat, when, where
will be to approach these queries mindfully,
without harsh self-judgment or
judgment of others
but with a commitment to make life-giving choices
as we navigate social media every day.
online check-in every two days* At home, on a break at work, in a coffee shop, on vacation, in your daily life: reflect on the retreat materials in a way that suits your schedule.
a three-week commitment, July 12-August 2
spiritual exercises relevant to your life online and offline
for persons of any or no religious or spiritual background
Some discounts are available for those in financial hardship. Talk to me. The benefactor rate helps offset costs and makes scholarship aid possible.Register here!
In addition to spiritual practice in our social media lives, which will be a steady thread throughout our three weeks together, we will look at social media as facilitator of spiritual growth (you can replace "spiritual growth" with "faith" or "following the Way" or the word or phrase that better suits your religious or spiritual affiliation), as challenge to spiritual growth, and as opportunity for spiritual growth, and we will also explore social media as "content provider," as educational and aesthetic resource.
