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.

Nine Days with William Stringfellow - Lent 2020

The full list of our Lent 202o online retreats is here.

Longing for some prayerful and reflective time in your busy life?

Interested in a new perspective on the Bible in these United States?

Wondering about the relationship between Christian faith and 
social realities?

Join us for

Nine Days with William Stringfellow
an online retreat
Wednesday, March 4 - Thursday, March 12, 2020

William Stringfellow (1928-1985), was a lawyer by training and trade, not a professional theologian, though he wrote a dozen books and was one of most astute and insightful Christian thinkers of the 20th century. An Episcopal layman who understood himself very much as "Protestant" and engaged in open criticism of his own beloved church, he was grounded in the prayerful study of scripture. Stringfellow was also a radical social critic preoccupied with the powers of sin and death in the world and in the cosmos.

"My concern," Stringfellow wrote, "is to understand America biblically -- in contrast to the more common tendency, to understand the Bible 'Americanly.'" One of the published summaries of his work notes that his great theme "was the Constantinian compromise, the accommodation of Christianity to the values of the empire and the preservation of status quo."

Click here for an informative essay on William Stringfellow.

What, when, where, how

* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, beginning Wednesday, March 4, 2020.

* The life and writings of William Stringfellow serve as a focus and inspiration.

* Simple and accessible:

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

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

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

* Easy registration via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal. Note: You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer paying by check, please e-mail me.)

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!

Retreat fee (choose one)

Regular rate $75.00 USD Benefactor rate $130.00 USD DIscount rate $65.00 USD Hardship rate $50.00 USD

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration. 

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, and sometimes a piece of music too) 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 on the one-time sign-in 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 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. (More about your friendly retreat designer and facilitator, Jane Redmont, here. Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.)

Reminder:  The full list of our Lent 2020 online offerings is here.

Block Island, R.I., where Stringfellow shared a home with the poet Anthony Towne.

Nine Days with Ada María Isasi-Diaz - Lent 2020

Longing for meditative time *and* new energy in your busy life, this Lent?
Eager to discover --or remember-- the life and work of Ada María Isasi-Díaz?
Curious about or committed to listening to the wisdom of grassroots Latinas?
 Aware that spirituality involves struggle, community, family, in daily life?

Join us!

Nine Days with Ada María Isasi-Díaz
an online retreat
Monday, March 16 - Thursday, March 24, 2020

Ada María Isasi-Díaz (1943-2012), born in La Habana, Cuba, came to the United States as a political refugee at the age of 18. Educated in Catholic and ecumenical Protestant institutions, she became a professor of Ethics at Drew University Divinity School in 1991, the year after receiving her Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary. She taught at Drew until her retirement in 2009. Isasi-Díaz was the editor and author of several books, including En La Lucha/In the Struggle: Elaborating a Mujerista Theology and Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Her development of a mujerista theology was, within the rich field of liberation theology, the expression of the theological, ethical, and socio-cultural insights of grassroots Latinas, whom she always considered her "community of accountability." Her final project was co-editing the book Theological Perspectives for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Public Intellectuals for the Twenty-First Century.

Isasi-Díaz became involved in the movement for the ordination of Catholic women in the 1970s. During her years at Drew, she maintained both her residence in New York City and her involvement in Our Lady Queen of Angels parish in El Barrio, East Harlem. After the decision by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to close the church building in early 2007, Isasi-Díaz helped to lead protest vigils and and worship services outside the church on the sidewalk, frequently serving as preacher at the weekly service. She was an activist for social justice as well as church justice, not simply asking for church reform but living new ways of being church at the heart of her community. Her lifelong attention to the lives of grassroots Latinas nourished her ethical, theological, and spiritual thinking.

The online retreat will focus on the meaning and lived experience of realities and concepts basic to AMID's life and work, including lo cotidiano (daily life); la lucha (the struggle); la comunidad/la familia (community/family); permítanme hablar (allow me to speak); un poquito de justicia (a little justice); place and being a person of multiple locations; and kin-dom.

Note: The meaning and resonance of the Spanish words are not fully embodied in their English translations. These words cannot be divorced from their Latina/o cultural, political, economic, religious, and linguistic context. AMID, who wrote in both English and Spanish, used the Spanish words above in her English texts, and so will we.

What, when, where

* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, beginning Monday, March 16, 2020.

* The writings of Ada María Isasi-Díaz will provide us with focus and inspiration.

* Simple and accessible:

one quote per day
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
on nine consecutive days

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

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

* Easy registration via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal. Note: You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer paying by check, please e-mail me.)

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!

Retreat fee (choose one)

Regular rate $75.00 USD Benefactor rate $130.00 USD DIscount rate $65.00 USD Hardship rate $50.00 USD

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

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, and a little music to feed the soul) 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, I will send instructions for the one-time-only sign-in 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 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. (More about your friendly retreat designer and facilitator, Jane Redmont, here. Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.)

NOTE:

This retreat is not a replacement for the in-depth study of Dr. Isasi-Díaz's life and thought. Like our other online retreats (inspired by --among others-- Dorothy Day, Dorothee Soelle, Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton, and William Stringfellow) this one offers a carefully chosen selection of wisdom from a larger body of writing, together with attention to the life that produced and reflected this wisdom and to ways we can learn from this wisdom in daily life.

Reminder: The full listing of our Lent 2020 online offerings is here.

Nine days with Dorothee Soelle - Lent 2020

The full list of our Lent 2020 online offerings is here.

Do you need spiritual support and enrichment
during the fourth and fifth week of Lent?
It's not too late!

Join us for a time of reflection, practice, and prayer.

Friday, March 27 to Saturday, April 4, 2020
Nine Days with Dorothee Soelle
an online 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 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; the church as community of memory, resistance, and hope.

This retreat will be especially helpful if you

--are struggling with the challenge of staying hopeful in hard times
--want to explore connections between Christian spirituality and social justice
--are busy and yearn for some quiet and inspiration
--are honest about your struggles in faith
--want to rekindle your relationship with God
--got a late start on Lent

What, when, where, how

* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, beginning Friday, March 27, 2020

* The life and writings of Dorothee Soelle serve as a focus and inspiration.

* Simple and accessible:

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

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

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

* Easy registration via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal.

Note: You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer paying by check, please e-mail me.)

--Register by March 2 for the Early Bird discounted rate!
--Some discounts are available for those in financial hardship. Talk to me.
--The benefactor rate helps offset costs and makes scholarship aid possible.

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

Register here!

Retreat fee (choose one)

Regular rate $75.00 USD Benefactor rate $130.00 USD Early Bird rate $65.00 USD Hardship rate $50.00 USD

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, and sometimes a piece of music too) 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 on the one-time sign-in 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 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. (More about your friendly retreat designer and facilitator, Jane Redmont, here. Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.)

Reminder: The full list of our Lent 2020 online offerings is here.

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.

Nine Days in Lent with Howard Thurman

The full list of our Lent 2018 online offerings is here.

Got a late start on Lent?
Interested in (re-)discovering the work of a wise guide?
Need spiritual support?
Want a short and more intense retreat rather than a longer retreat?
Longing for some prayerful and reflective time in your busy life?

Join us

Monday, March 5 - Wednesday, March 13, 2018

Howard Thurman:

Nine Days in Lent

an online retreat

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 predated Black liberation theology by a generation.

What, when, where, how
 
* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, beginning Monday, March 5, 2018.

* The life and writings of  Howard Thurman serve as a focus and inspiration.

* Simple and accessible:

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

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

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

* Easy registration via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal.  

Note: You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer paying by check, please e-mail me.)

--Register by February 20 for the Early Bird discounted rate!
--Some discounts are available for those in financial hardship. Talk to me.
--The benefactor rate helps offset costs and makes scholarship aid possible.

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration. 

Register here!

Retreat fee (choose one)

Regular rate $75.00 USD Benefactor rate $120.00 USD Early Bird rate $65.00 USD Hardship rate $50.00 USD

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, and sometimes a piece of music too) 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 on the one-time sign-in 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 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. (More about your friendly retreat designer and facilitator, Jane Redmont, here. Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.)

 Reminder: The full list of our Lent 2018 online offerings is here. 

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.

Nine days in Lent with Dorothy Day

The full list of our Lent 2018 online offerings is here.

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?

Hoping for a life-giving Lent?

Join us for

Nine Days with Dorothy Day

an online retreat

Wednesday, February 21 - Thursday, March 1, 2018

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.


 

What, when, where, how
 
* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, beginning Wednesday, February 21, 2018.

* The life and writings of Dorothy Day serve as a focus and inspiration.

* Simple and accessible:

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

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

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

* Easy registration via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal. 

Note: You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer paying by check, please e-mail me.)

--Register by February 2 for the Early Bird discounted rate!
--Some discounts are available for those in financial hardship. Talk to me.
--The benefactor rate helps offset costs and makes scholarship aid possible.

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration. 

Register here!

Retreat fee (choose one)

Regular rate $75.00 USD Benefactor rate $120.00 USD Early Bird rate $65.00 USD Hardship rate $50.00 USD

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, and sometimes a piece of music too) 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 on the one-time sign-in 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 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. (More about your friendly retreat designer and facilitator, Jane Redmont, here. Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.)

 Reminder: The full list of our Lent 2018 online offerings is here.

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.

Nine Days with Dorothee Soelle: an online retreat

Struggling with the challenge of staying hopeful in hard times?
Exploring the relationships between Christian spirituality and social justice?
Busy and yearning for for some quiet and energizing inspiration?

Join us!

Nine Days with Dorothee Soelle
an online retreat
August 14-22, 2017

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 only rarely 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, beginning Monday, August 14, 2017.

* The writings of Dorothee Soelle will provide us with focus and inspiration.

* Simple and accessible:

one quote per day
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
on nine consecutive days

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

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

* Easy registration via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal. Note: You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer paying by check, please e-mail me.)

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!

Retreat fee (choose one)

Regular rate $75.00 USD Benefactor rate $100.00 USD DIscount rate $65.00 USD Hardship rate $50.00 USD Installment option $35.00 USD

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

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, and a little music to feed the soul) 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, I will send instructions for the one-time-only sign-in 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 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. (More about your friendly retreat designer and facilitator, Jane Redmont, here. Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.)

 Reminder: The full list of our summer 2017 online offerings is here.

Nine days with Ada María Isasi-Díaz: an online retreat

Longing for meditative time *and* new energy in your busy life?
Eager to discover --or remember-- the life and work of Ada María Isasi-Díaz?
Aware that spirituality involves struggle, community, family, in daily life?
Curious about or committed to listening to the wisdom of grassroots Latinas?

Join us!

Nine Days with Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz

an online retreat
July 17-25, 2017

Ada María Isasi-Díaz (1943-2012), born in La Habana, Cuba, came to the United States as a political refugee at the age of 18. Educated in Catholic and ecumenical Protestant institutions, she became a professor of Ethics at Drew University Divinity School in 1991, the year after receiving her Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary. She taught at Drew until her retirement in 2009. Isasi-Díaz was the editor and author of several books, including En La Lucha/In the Struggle: Elaborating a Mujerista Theology and Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Her development of a mujerista theology was, within the rich field of liberation theology, the expression of the theological, ethical, and socio-cultural insights of grassroots Latinas, whom she always considered her "community of accountability." Her final project was co-editing the book Theological Perspectives for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Public Intellectuals for the Twenty-First Century.

Isasi-Díaz  became involved in the movement for the ordination of Catholic women in the 1970s. During her years at Drew, she maintained both  her residence in New York City and her involvement in Our Lady Queen of Angels parish in El Barrio, East Harlem. After the decision by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to close the church building in early 2007, Isasi-Díaz helped to lead protest vigils and and worship services outside the church on the sidewalk, frequently serving as preacher at the weekly service. She was an activist for social justice as well as church justice, not simply asking for church reform but living new ways of being church at the heart of her community. Her lifelong attention to the lives of grassroots Latinas nourished her ethical, theological, and spiritual thinking.

The online retreat will focus on the meaning and lived experience of realities and concepts basic to AMID's life and work, including lo cotidiano (daily life); la lucha (the struggle); la comunidad/la familia (community/family); permítanme hablar (allow me to speak); un poquito de justicia (a little justice); place and being a person of multiple locations; and kin-dom.

Note: The meaning and resonance of the Spanish words are not fully embodied in their English translations. These words cannot be divorced from their Latina/o cultural, political, economic, religious, and linguistic context. AMID, who wrote in both English and Spanish, used the Spanish words above in her English texts, and so will we.

What, when, where

* An online nine-day spiritual retreat, beginning Monday, July 17, 2017.

* The writings of Ada María Isasi-Díaz will provide us with focus and inspiration.

* Simple and accessible:

one quote per day
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
on nine consecutive days

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

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

* Easy registration via PayPal secure link, which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal. Note: You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer paying by check, please e-mail me.)

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!

Retreat fee (choose one)

Regular rate $75.00 USD Benefactor rate $100.00 USD DIscount rate $65.00 USD Hardship rate $50.00 USD

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

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, and a little music to feed the soul) 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, I will send instructions for the one-time-only sign-in 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 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. (More about your friendly retreat designer and facilitator, Jane Redmont, here. Please do not hesitate to write me with questions or concerns.)

NOTE:

This retreat is not a replacement for the in-depth study of Dr. Isasi-Diaz's life and thought. Like our other online retreats (inspired by --among others-- Dorothy Day, Dorothee Soelle, Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton, and William Stringfellow) this one offers a carefully chosen selection of wisdom from a larger body of writing, together with attention to the life that produced and reflected this wisdom and to ways we can learn from this wisdom in daily life.

 Reminder: The full list of our summer 2017 online offerings is here.

Reminder: Stringfellow online short retreat starts tomorrow! (MONDAY JUNE 26)

A polemical, circus-loving, biblical, critical, incarnational, political, Psalms-praying, "almost but not quite out" partnered gay man, an Episcopalian, lawyer and theologian. You don't want to miss this. Nine days in the company of William Stringfellow. (1928-85). Online retreat begins Monday! That's tomorrow. June 26. See here for details.