Note: This Lent, we offer TWO kinds of online retreats:
1. on a blog (as we have offered in the past):
No
appointment needed: read, gaze, listen, and practice on your own time;
resources are posted regularly to mark a rhythm and offer progression
and order, but you may pick the hour of day or night and the pace at
which you participate; any conversation is in writing -- or you may
remain anonymous.
2. on Zoom (as we began offering last year):
Weekly
(or in some cases, one-time-only) gathering on Zoom, at an appointed
date and time; in real time; any conversation is in person and with your
face (or Zoom profile) showing.
Desert Journey, Daily Bread:
Perspectives
Ancient and New
on
Food and Fasting
in Lent
an online retreat
an online retreat
(choose either blog-based or Zoom-based)
Lent and Holy Week
March 6* to April 16, 2022 (blog-based)
Lent and Holy Week
March 6* to April 16, 2022 (blog-based)
* You're welcome to start the retreat any time in the first week of Lent, March 6-12!
or
Monday evenings March 7, 14, 21, 28 & April 4, 11
(Zoom-based)
 |
| Jane Redmont |
The retreat
In the Desert Journey, Daily Bread retreat, we will journey through the Christian season of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, with gentle guidance, wisdom from biblical, historical, and contemporary sources, and opportunities for prayer and practice.
Our purpose is not to make a fetish out of either food or fasting; they are part of a larger life of faith and practice, of the full life of the body, and of the Lenten journey. Fasting and food are a lens through which we can live the season of Lent, which itself is a path to attune us more closely to God, to God's world, to ourselves, and to our neighbors --and to prepare to celebrate the Resurrection.The retreat is a call to simplicity, mindfulness, and holiness.
It is meant to be deeply personal, but also to invite us into environmental, contextual, and justice perspectives on food and fasting.
Like the season of Lent itself, it invites us to repentance and conversion, but also to joy.
Each week of Desert Journey, Daily Bread will have a theme related both to the topic of the retreat and to one or more of the biblical lectionary readings for the Sunday that begins the week.
This is an ecumenical retreat in the Western Christian tradition, though there will be some references to Orthodox (a.k.a. Eastern) Christian Lenten practices. Though your friendly retreat leader, an Episcopal/Anglican Christian, worships in a tradition using the Revised Common Lectionary, she will also take into account the Roman Catholic Sunday lectionary. We also have much to learn from sister religious traditions (Judaism, Islam) which have practices of fasting and an active spirituality of food in many cultural settings.Each week of Desert Journey, Daily Bread retreat will feature:
* short readings for our reflection;In the blog version of the retreat, there will be new material three times a week:
* spiritual exercises (which will involve the whole person, body, mind, heart, and spirit, as do all Lenten practices) especially those involving or related to eating, fasting, and food;
* prayers;
* images to contemplate; and
* reminders of the broader context of the Lenten journey in which we practice our praying, eating, fasting, simple living, almsgiving, and work toward the kin-dom of God. Participants can use all of these according to their own context and daily life.
1. Saturday evening (in anticipation of Sunday):
Reflection on the theme for the week in conjunction with one or more of the Sunday lectionary readings.2. Tuesday noontime:
The spirituality of food in Lent: wisdom, queries, and spiritual practices related to food, water, and eating.3. Thursday evening (in anticipation of Friday):
Friday is traditionally a penitential day and some Christian traditions focus their Lenten fasting in particular ways on Friday. Accordingly, our Thursday night reflection will prepare us for the greater simplicity of Fridays in Lent.
It will also offer us wisdom and support in whatever fasting practices we have chosen, whether they involve fasting from food or fasting in other ways (from television, from Twitter, from harmful speech, from impulse buying, from online arguments).
In the Zoom version of the retreat, there will be a weekly combination of these same themes and materials --though adapted in quantity and form to fit the 90-minute weekly format.
Reminder: We are offering two versions (formats) of this retreat:
Pick one or the other; there is no hybrid option.
Each format has different advantages.
One is not "better" than the other.
It's more a question of
what suits your temperament, your schedule,
and your way of receiving and integrating verbal and visual resources.
A note on retreat fees:
Easy registration and payment via PayPal secure link,
which takes credit and debit cards in addition to PayPal.
You don't have to have your own PayPal account to use this online payment method. (If you prefer to pay by Venmo or check, please e-mail me.)
Discounts are available for those in financial hardship.
(If even the "hardship rate" is too high for you, please e-mail me about scholarship need.)
The benefactor rate helps offset costs and makes scholarship aid possible.
Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.
An online retreat? How does that work?
1) Blog-based version:
* 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.
* The retreat offers 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.
* The blog-based retreat is more private and more leisurely, and in addition to receiving (on the blog) materials on three days of each week, you will have access to these materials throughout all of Lent and Holy Week; for instance, if you want or need to return to one of the first week's resources during the third week, you will be able to do so.
* Once you register for the retreat, I will send instructions for the
one-time-only sign-in mechanism. After that, the retreat blog will always
recognize you.
For the blog-based retreat, please register here:
2) Zoom-based version:
* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge at a specific time each week.
* You'll need a computer or tablet with internet access. You do not have to to have a personal Zoom account.
* Every Monday evening (7:30-9:00 p.m. Eastern Time) in Lent (March 7 through April 11) the 90-minute Zoom session me will offer an adapted, "live" version of the resources mentioned above: quotations, spiritual exercises,
and prayers, with some images as well to nourish you
visually, a bit of music, and times of shared silence.
* The six-week retreat will follow the one-theme-per-week design and the reference to the week's Sunday lectionary readings.
* This will be an opportunity to touch base with me, the retreat facilitator, and with your fellow retreats "in real time." On the other hand, if you miss a week, there will not be a way to catch up.
* Once you register for the retreat, I will send you the Zoom link, which will be valid for all six Mondays of the retreat.
For the Zoom-based retreat, please register here:
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Reminder: The full list of our Lent 2022 online offerings
(both blog-based and Zoom-based) is here.
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