Heartache, Solidarity, Compassion: Three Tuesday Zoom Mini-Retreats in Lent

Lent got you stuck? 
Or in discouragement or despair at the state of the world and the nation? 
Are you still unsure how to be, how to pray, what to do? 
Wondering where God is? 
Why and how Lent, in this year 2026?

Lent:

 Season of introspection, repentance, 
        contemplation of the mystery of death and resurrection.

    Season of simplicity.
         Season of honesty. 
            Season of silence. 
                Season of listening. 
                    Season of the Church's long retreat.
                        Season of stories of Jesus, 
                                struggle for a righteous life and right relationship, 

                                yearning for a world at peace. 
                            Season of facing despair and discovering hope.

Here's a Lenten series for you,  

online on Zoom,

on three successive Tuesdays, this Lent 2026.
 

Three evenings of 90 minutes each. 

No easy answers, but a time of sojourn with Gospel wisdom, reflection and prayer with the help of images and music and a few good words, and the comfort of being in community online across the miles that separate us physically.

Each mini-retreat takes place at 

7:30 pm  Eastern Time
 
(= 6:30 pm Central, 5:30 pm Mountain, 4:30 pm Pacific)

Tuesday, March 10

 

Tuesday, March 17

 

Tuesday, March 24

Three themes will guide us:

heartache 

solidarity

compassion

Not only our own heartache, but the heartache of others.

Solidarity with those who struggle and suffer and weep, both near us and far away.

Compassion as a daily practice, toward others and ourselves, with the help of God.

Please join us. 

Click here for payment link. Your payment is your registration. 

As always, there is a sliding scale of fees. If even the lowest fee is too much for you, please write me. Nobody should be without spiritual support, even and especially if they are without funds.

Attendance at the whole series of three evenings is highly recommended, but if you can only attend one or two sessions, please write and let me know.<script> paypal.HostedButtons({ hostedButtonId: "3LW9PCJ4XCRQ4", }).render("#paypal-container-3LW9PCJ4XCRQ4") </scrip

Three pop-up Advent-Christmas retreats on Zoom

You've heard of, or bought food from, pop-up stores or food trucks. How about a pop-up retreat?

This year, 2025, I didn't offer an on-blog retreat for the duration of Advent as I had in the past. I am, however, offering three pop-up retreats during the end of Advent and the beginning of the Christmas season. 

These are short, online on Zoom, one-time retreats.

You can and may sign up for one, for two, or for all three.

Their common denominator is that each offers an oasis of calm and comfort.

The retreats do, however, have different themes:

 

1.  Thursday, December 18, 7:30 pm Eastern Time (6:30 Central Time, etc.)                                                                                  
                Winter Grieving and Grief  * 

*Please note: This is not a therapy group and is not a substitute for professional clinical help. I am an experienced retreat leader, spiritual director, and group facilitator with five decades of experience in pastoral care, but I am not a licensed psychotherapist. Sometimes grief is complicated and can lead to or coexist with depression and other challenges in mental and emotional health --and with some physical symptoms. Do not hesitate to seek professional psychological help if you need it.

 2.  Monday, December 22, 7:30 pm Eastern Time (6:30 Central Time, etc.): 

        
            Calming Down for Christmas

3.  Friday, December 26, 4:00 pm (1:00 Central Time, etc.): 

       

             Meditations in Darkness and Light

Each retreat lasts for two hours. (You'd be surprised how fast two hours can go, even when the theme of the retreat is related to slowing down!)

Each two-hour retreat will include gently guided mindful breathing, some music, visual art, and poetic words for meditation, and some conversation. There will be a brief stretch break halfway through each session. 

All religious, spiritual, or non-religious orientations are welcome. Bring your own heart and experience.

 

credit: Harvard Health Publishing  HMS

Registration and payment information are below.

Please note that there are three fee options: regular, benefactor, and budget. Please write me, Jane Redmont, if you are in a situation of economic hardship and need a freebie: it's Christmas, and everyone deserves spiritual support.

Winter Grieving and Grief, Thursday December 18, 7:30 pm Eastern: 

Click here for payment options and payment

Calming Down for Christmas, Monday December 22, 7:30 pm Eastern:
Click here for payment options and payment.

Meditations in Darkness and Light, Friday December 26, 4:30 pm Eastern:
Click here for payment options and payment.

Grieving and Grief: Three Weeks of Companionship (September 2024, weekly on Zoom)

 Grieving and Grief: Three Weeks of Companionship

An online retreat and community of support

Three successive Mondays

on Zoom

September 16, 23, and 30

 

7:30 p.m. Eastern Time*

(4:30 pm Pacific, etc.)

 

 

credit: Harvard Health Publishing  HMS

 

We all live with grief. Grief has many sources; the death of loved ones --a parent, a child, a friend, a sibling, an animal companion--, pregnancy loss, the break-up of a relationship, emigration, estrangement, leaving a job, losing a job, finding oneself with an empty nest, losing a limb, saying goodbye. Sometimes grief is mingled with other emotions and states of mind: always loss, but also anger, guilt, regret, relief.

Sometimes we experience our grief intensely. Sometimes it is muted. Sometimes we have to identify, remember, or excavate it from where it has been hidden.

Grief is a state of being. It can feel like an object. At other times what we become aware of is grieving -- the reality that grief is a process, a journey, an ongoing path. 

 

Grief is a deeply personal experience. It can also be a collective reality.

 

Käthe Kollwitz, Lament (1938-41)

In this series of online gatherings, we will gently walk and dwell together to name our grief and our grieving, to tell stories of loss, to honor memories, to mourn or rebuild spiritual practices, to notice hints of new life.

Each two-hour session will include a beginning with mindful breathing, conversation, some music and visual art for meditation, and a spiritual exercise such as writing or drawing. (No artistic expertise is necessary!) Yes, there will be a stretch break halfway through each session. All religious, spiritual, or non-religious orientations are welcome. Bring your own heart and experience.

Participants should be committed to observing confidentiality.

Registration and payment information are below.

Please note: This is not a therapy group and is not a substitute for professional clinical help. I am an experienced retreat leader, spiritual director, and group facilitator with five decades of experience in pastoral care, but I am not a licensed psychotherapist. Sometimes grief is complicated and can lead to or coexist with depression and other challenges in mental and emotional health --and with some physical symptoms. Do not hesitate to seek professional help if you need it. 

 

Note that there are three fee options: regular, benefactor, and hardship. Please write me, Jane Redmont, if even the hardship fee is too much, and we can arrange for partial or full scholarship. The benefactor rate helps make scholarships available.

 
* This group meets on Mondays at 7:30 pm Eastern Time (4:30 Pacific Time). If you cannot make it in the evening, but would prefer a daytime group, please let me know via email; if there is enough interest, I can make a second group on Mondays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern (8:00 a.m. Pacific).

Grieving and Grief Zoom group - Sept. 16, 23, and 30, 2024

Regular rate $150.00 USD Benefactor rate $300.00 USD Hardship rate $90.00 USD

Message (optional):

 

 

(c) Jane Redmont

  

In August and September, we are also offering online retreats inspired by the wisdom of Howard Thurman. See here for details.

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

Regular rate $45.00 USD Benefactor rate $80.00 USD Hardship rate $25.00 USD

Message (optional):

 

 

Thurman evening retreat 08/19/24 Zoom - pick one rate

Regular rate $45.00 USD Benefactor rate $80.00 USD Hardship rate $25.00 USD

Message (optional):

 

 

Thurman 9-day (Sept. 10-18) online retreat - pick one rate

Regular rate $95.00 USD Benefactor rate $155.00 USD Hardship rate $45.00 USD

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.

 

ENTERING ADVENT: patience, impatience, and the present - a remote retreat

Here we are

Advent, the beginning of the Christian year and the season leading up to Christmas, is full of paradoxes. It is a gentle season of waiting, but a season of prophetic warnings and invitations. It looks toward new beginnings and also toward the end of time. It is, as I have often said and as I preached on the first Sunday of Advent, both a time to enter God's patience and a time to enter God's impatience. To put it more casually, it can really mess with our sense of time.

Yet here we are, at the start of the season, with all this --and preparations for celebration of the birth of Jesus-- swirling around us and inside us, and in the readings appointed for the season, for those who use a lectionary.

Perhaps the most important thing we can do as we step into Advent --or as we wonder whether and how to enter the season-- is to make space, and time, to do so mindfully. To live Advent with care, in the present.

(c) Jane Redmont 2016

The retreat

Our "Entering Advent" retreat is a two-hour experience on Zoom, with time and space for quiet, music, gazing at visual art, and personal reflection and prayer.

It can serve as an oasis in this already busy holiday season of the secular world, or as a beginning of your extended Advent practice with some resources, guideposts, and practices - or both.

I am offering the retreat twice (with a third time possible upon request) to accommodate your varied schedules and time zones.

Wednesday evening, November 30, 2022 at 7:00 pm Eastern Time (4:00 pm Pacific Time)

        If there are sufficient requests, Wednesday evening, November         30 at 9:30 pm Eastern (6:30 Pacific) for you night owls of the East             Coast, early evening for you folks of the Western time zones.

Thursday morning, December 1, 2022 at 10:30 am Eastern Time (7:30 am Pacific for you early birds out there).

The retreat lasts for two hours.

At the end of the retreat, I'll also send you off with a few suggestions of Advent practices, which I'll have on a page that I can e-mail you as well as show on Zoom at the end of our time together.

Registration

The regular fee for the retreat is $30. If you can't afford this, a lower rate is available. If you are seriously broke, write me to request a freebie. If your resources are more abundant, a benefactor rate is available too.

Registration and payment are here:

Entering Advent 2022 - pick one rate

Regular rate $30.00 USD Benefactor rate $60.00 USD Hardship rate $15.00 USD

Make sure you pick a time!

Wednesday 7 pm Wednesday 9:30 pm Thursday 10:30 am

 

Zoom and your favorite device

Our retreat will be in real time, on Zoom, so you'll need a computer or tablet.

The larger the screen, the better: while you can use Zoom on your smartphone, technically speaking, I don't recommend it because you won't see the images (both other participants' faces and the visual art I will share) as well as you would on a larger screen, and also because your fellow participants run the risk of seeing your face bounce around if your phone is unstable, which can be a distraction on a retreat meant to offer some slowness and stability.

I'll send out a Zoom link and instructions once you have registered. If you haven't used Zoom before, I'll be glad to help you ahead of time.

A Zoom retreat really can happen! I've led many such retreats in a variety of formats.

Questions? Concerns?

Please feel welcome to e-mail me here.

Note:

Because I am going on an extended family visit during the winter holidays, there will be no long blog-based Advent retreat this year. 

I am, however, already planning a long retreat for Lent, "Re-membering Our Lives." Publicity and registration for Lenten retreat offerings will be available by the end of January.

Carina Nebula via James Webb Telescope / NASA

Meditations with Howard Thurman: an evening Zoom retreat - March 17, 2022 (9:30 p.m. Eastern / 6:30 p.m. Pacific)

Longing for some reflective time in your busy life?  

                            Interested in (re-)discovering the work of a wise guide? 

Want a shorter Zoom retreat rather than a longer blog-based retreat?

                            Needing and hoping for spiritual support in this season of Lent?

Join us for an evening of 

Meditations with Howard Thurman

Note the change in date and time!

For the convenience of people across time zones,

this two-hour evening retreat is now scheduled for

 Thursday, March 17, 2022

at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time / 7:30 Mountain Time / 

8:30 Central Time / 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time 

(hello, East Coast night owls!)

 

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.

We will spend our 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.

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

If the "hardship rate" is too high for you, please write me and we will arrange for a partial or full scholarship. If you can afford the "benefactor rate," your fees will help make scholarships possible.

Register here:

 

Thurman Zoom retreat - pick one rate

Regular rate $30.00 USD Benefactor rate $55.00 USD Hardship rate $15.00 USD

 

 

 We have also adjusted the schedule of our other Lenten retreats. 

See [here - link coming later today].

ONLINE RETREATS, LENT 2022: several formats, different lengths. Ponder and choose.

Welcome to Lent 2022. We are offering several online retreats, some long, some short, in two different formats:

 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.

 

Both formats share verbal, visual, and sometimes musical resources as well as prayer and invitations to spiritual practice. Both encourage us to take quiet time and time apart. 

Each format has different advantages. One is not "better" than the other. It's more a question of what suits your temperament, your schedule, the type of help you need to keep commitments, and your way of receiving and integrating verbal and visual resources.

 

Here's the list of retreat titles and dates.

 

Click on each title 

for a detailed description and registration information.

Retreats lasting all of Lent:  

 

WATER IN THE WILDERNESS: Longing and Renewal in Lent

            March 6*-April 16

            Blog-based, continuous, on your own schedule.

 

DESERT JOURNEY, DAILY BREAD: Perspectives on Food and Fasting in Lent

 March 6*-April 16 

 Offered in two formats (pick one): 1) blog-based and continuous or 

2) Zoom-based, with six weekly 90-minute or two-hour sessions.

 

* You're welcome to start either retreat any time in the first week of Lent, March 6-12!

 

Nine-day ("novena") retreats 

focused on the life and work of one person (blog-based):

HOWARD THURMAN 

March 9-17

WILLIAM STRINGFELLOW

March 22-30
 

DOROTHY DAY

April 1-9

 Choose one, or attend two or all three of them.

One-evening retreats inspired by the same three people 

on Zoom

 

MEDITATIONS WITH HOWARD THURMAN

Thursday, March 10

 

ENCOUNTERING STRINGFELLOW

Thursday, March 24

 

WALKING WITH DOROTHY DAY

Thursday, April 7

 

One-evening retreats

(on Zoom)

WATER IN THE WILDERNESS: LONGING AND RENEWAL IN LENT

Offered twice: 

1) Tuesday, March 15, early evening Eastern Time (late afternoon Pacific Time)

2) Tuesday, April 5,  late evening (hello, night owls!) Eastern Time (early evening Pacific Time)

Sliding scale fees offered for all retreats.