There's Always Time:
An Advent Twilight Retreat
(on Zoom)
This is the same
retreat offered twice for your convenience, on two different days at
different times.
Advent, the season before Christmas, looks toward both the first and the second comings of Jesus. It is a gentle, slow season --I like to speak of it as "the seasonal slowdown," a countercultural choice if there ever was one, amid the bright lights and the many "BUY ME!" messages. It is also a bracing, even startling season with Scripture readings announcing changes of cosmic proportions. It is thus a season of paradoxes and contradictions. It murmurs "Slow down..." and shouts "Wake up!" How will we observe it this year?
It's wise, if you are able, to begin by clearing some space and slowing down. Even that can be a challenge. Even during a pandemic. Or perhaps especially so: the experience of time, for many of us, has been strange. How many of us have asked "What day of the week is this?" over the past months. Add to this the fact that Advent is always a reexamination of time and of our rhythms of life and you have an additional challenge.
This retreat will offer a “Welcome to Advent” experience.
It will even work for you if you’re muttering to yourself "I am SO not
ready for Advent" or are starting your observance of Advent a little late
this year. (In other words, you can think of it as a "Help! I'm not ready for Advent!" retreat)
One retreat offering will be in the middle of this first week of Advent. The other (pick either one) will be in the afternoon of the second Sunday of Advent.
It's never too late to get started.
The retreat will offer some shared quiet time, some reflection on the themes and practices of Advent, and a little music and visual art. While it will offer several threads or layers of this rich season, you can and may pick just one thread as you emerge from the retreat and live your own Advent. Do what brings you life. Listen for the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Advent challenges our impatience and invites us to enter God's patience. It is the season of taking the long view, beyond our own small range of vision. If the Good News is to take root in us, we need to enter God's time, God's timetable.
Yet Advent is also a time to enter God's impatience, a time of righteous anger, a time when prophets challenge our apathy and paralysis and urge us forward into visions of a changed world. It is a season of yearning in which the stories and songs in the scriptures speak of a God who longs to transform our hearts, our society, and creation itself -- soon, now, urgently.
One of the challenges of this season is to readjust our sense of time, to learn again (or for the first time) when it is appropriate to enter into God's patience and when it is time to entire into God's impatience.
The retreat is on Zoom and is two and a half hours long, with a little break in the middle. We'll take all the time we need to settle down, quiet our bodies, focus our hearts and minds, and listen for a word, an image, a story that speaks to our whole being. It will be good to do this in a community, however small, across the miles. Join us.
For registration and payment, click one of the two buttons below. Make sure to pick the day you plan to attend!
Please note that there is a sliding scale so that this retreat can be accessible to as many people as possible. The PayPal link below offers options for payment besides a direct PayPal transfer. In other words, you don't need to have a PayPal account. Once you have registered, with your e-mail address, I will get in touch with you and send you the Zoom link.
Do contact me if you have any questions or concerns. (Click on the underlined words "contact me" for e-mail.) I'm looking forward to our time together.
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