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.

 

LEARNING AND SPIRITUAL REFRESHMENT, FEBRUARY TO JUNE 2023, online

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.

1. RE-MEMBERING OUR LIVES:

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

4.  SOELLE IN SPRINGTIME: 

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.

SOELLE IN SPRINGTIME: Challenge and Wonder - a course-retreat

Yes, a course-retreat.

Less reading and more spiritual practice than a course (class), 

more reading and exercising the mind than a retreat.

Soelle in Springtime:

Challenge and Wonder

April 19-June 3, 2023
 
  online

Read and reflect in community on the work, thought, and spirituality of Dorothee Soelle (also spelled Sölle). 

Dorothee Soelle (1928-2003) was a German theologian, poet, peace activist, and Protestant Christian with Catholic, secular, humanist, and Jewish companions and allies; she was also a friend, teacher, spouse, mother, socialist, and from mid-life on, feminist. 

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 challenging. We will visit a number of them:

    - history, evil, and Christian political engagement
    - silence, language, and poetry in the struggle to name God
    - suffering and the vulnerability of God
    - Jesus the risk-taker and the community of the friends of Jesus
    - church as community of memory, resistance, and hope
    - feminism, disobedience, and human wholeness

She was one of the first Christian theologians (and first German theologians) to address the reality of the Shoah (Holocaust) and how Christian thought and practice must change in a post-Shoah era and world.

What, when, where, how

* A seven-week online course-retreat from April 19 to June 3, 2023
 
* Reading, personal reflection, group conversation.  

* At home, in your daily life: read and reflect in a way that suits your schedule.

* Two brief (1 or 2 paragraphs) online check-ins (in writing) per week.

* Not for academic credit -- but a solid contribution to your spiritual, intellectual, and community life and civic engagement, and to your work in the arts, community organizations, religion, activism, and/or academia.

* Readings are not lengthy (one and a half paperback books over seven weeks, plus short excerpts from Soelle's work on the course blog) but topics in Soelle's work are of the "oh, that's deep" sort. Expect gentle and friendly guidance and space for questioning and wonder, but also challenge and seriousness.

Soelle is the author of Political Theology; Revolutionary Patience; Suffering; Theology for Skeptics; Creative Disobedience; The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance; Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian; and many other works including books, essays, and poems. She also co-authored several books with friends such as her husband Fulbert Steffensky, her friend biblical scholar Luise Schottroff, and others.

How the course-retreat will work

* Soelle in Springtime is part course, part retreat. 

* As such it will examine some of Soelle's writings with the intention of understanding them and her and the historical, social, political, and economic context in which Soelle  lived and wrote. 

* It will also invite us to reflect on some of the themes Soelle raises in our own contexts and lives, to ponder some of the questions she raises, slowly and prayerfully or meditatively, and to share some of the fruit of our reflection and prayer with other participants. 

* There will be required readings every week, not too long, some from the two paperback required books** and some shorter ones posted on the course blog.

 

** Dorothee Soelle, Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian (Fortress, 1999)   

Dorothee Soelle, Essential Writings, ed. Dianne Oliver (Orbis, 2006)

* I will post short readings, meditations, and questions for you to the course blog twice a week, usually on Wednesday and Saturday.

* You will take up to three or four days to read and ponder and write brief responses (can be just a paragraph or two) on the course blog, any time. (That's it. No papers, no exams, no presentations.)

 

* While the main platform for the course will be our course blog, I will also offer a once a week live Zoom session for us to talk about our readings, reactions, and discoveries (spiritual, intellectual, and/or practical). This is optional but highly recommended. These weekly sessions, if you can make time for them, can keep you engaged and encouraged.

 

Online? How does that happen?
 
* As you saw above, two books are required. Otherwise, I offer further resources (quotations, images, reflection questions, guidelines for spiritual exercises, explanations and clarifications) online on a blog. The retreat blog will be open only to those whom the blog owner-administrator (that's me) allows in. In other words, it is not open to anybody wandering around the internet. Random web surfers will not be able to view either the blog or our conversations in the blog comments.  

 

Once you register for the course, I will send instructions on the one-time sign-in mechanism for the blog. After that, the blog will always recognize you.

* We have conversations online in the comments section of each post on the blog. These are written conversations. I will post questions for your reflection and you will ponder them on your own, then reflect on them in community through your twice-weekly check-ins on the blog. You must check in twice a week, but your check-in may be as short as one or two thoughtful paragraphs. You may write more if you wish, but that's the minimum: one or two paragraphs, twice a week. No papers, no exams, no required academic jargon. 

 

Registration and cost

Registration and payment take place via PayPal secure link (below), 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 making a donation via Venmo, please write me.

--A discount rate is available for those in financial hardship.

--Likewise, the benefactor rate, for those who have the means, helps offset costs and makes scholarship aid possible.

--If the discount fee is too high for you, please write me and ask about the possibility of a scholarship.

--Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

Please pick one

Regular rate $280.00 USD Benefactor rate $400.00 USD Discount rate $130.00 USD

Pick your first choice of weekly Zoom time time

Tuesday 8 pm Eastern Time (5 pm Pacific) Wednesday 11 am Eastern (8 am Pacific) Sundays 6:30 pm Eastern (3:30 pm Pacific) None of the times indicated works for me. No Zoom for me. I will participate only via the retreat blog.

Pick your second choice of weekly Zoom time

Tuesday 8 pm Eastern (5 pm Pacific) Wednesday 11 am Eastern (8 am Pacific) Sunday 6:30 pm Eastern (3:30 pm Pacific)

For a full list of February to June offerings from Redmont Retreats, click here.

Spirituality and Social Media: Online Mindfulness Retreat Begins July 12!

Thich Nhat Hanh

Spirituality and Social Media

an online retreat with

mindfulness practice and conversation

July 12 - August 2, 2017

Spirituality --whether we follow a religious path related to a particular historical community or a less institutionalized wisdom path-- is about everyday life. It involves our minds and hearts but also our bodies and the spaces and times in which we live. Spirituality is not just what we believe but even more, what we practice.

For many of us, social media (interactive internet-based platforms and programs like blogging, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) are a part of daily life now.

--How does our use of social media fit into our spiritual path?
----Can social media help our spiritual practice?
------Is it a challenge, a hindrance, or both? How so?
--------Do we need to develop spiritual practices for our online lives?

mindfulness
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.)

----How can we better navigate conversation and conflict online?
-------How is social media a vehicle for spiritual wisdom and community?
-----------What does a mindful way of interacting on and with social media look like for me, for you, in our particular life pilgrimage, at this time?

These questions are among the queries (as Quakers might call them) accompanying us on our online retreat.

Our task and challenge
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.

What, when, where

* An online three-week  retreat-and-reflection experience  beginning Wednesday, July 12.

* Simple and accessible:

online check-in every two days
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

* 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.

* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge.

* You'll need 10 to 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 $125.00 USD Benefactor rate $200.00 USD Discount rate $95.00 USD Hardship rate $75.00 USD

An online retreat? How does that work?

* The retreat offers resources and spiritual exercises every other day, along with other resources (some words of wisdom, some images 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.

More information about the retreat

* Every two days we will check in with the retreat and with each other (briefly if we wish, more if we prefer).

* Every other check-in (i.e. every four days) we will focus on mindfulness in our social media practices.

* In the "in-between" check-ins (i.e. every four days) we will reflect and converse about other themes related to spirituality and social media.

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.

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

LENT! Four online retreats, two short and two long -- Thurman, Soelle, Merton, desert journey, daily bread

Lent in the Western churches begins early this year.


Ash Wednesday is February 10.

We've got four online retreats for you to choose from this Lent. Click on the name of each retreat below for further information and registration:

FEBRUARY 10- MARCH 27 (Lent and Holy Week):

Two options:

Desert Journey and Daily Bread: New Lenten Perspectives on Food and Fasting

Peace in the Struggle: Lent with Thomas Merton

In case you're still in shock at the early beginning of Lent, or if you prefer a short and more intense experience to an all-Lent-long one:

FEBRUARY 22-MARCH 1:

Howard Thurman: Nine Days in Lent

MARCH 7-15:

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.

* * * * * * *

Lent is the Church's annual long retreat.

We go on this retreat --not necessarily to a different place, but 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.

So we clear space, or let God help us clear space, and time, to make room for the God of comfort and surprises and to make room for what is deepest and truest in our lives.

And because we not only live in our bodies but are our bodies, our practices are not only states of mind but bodily actions and attitudes.

"Spirituality" does not mean "outside the body" or "other than the body."

Quite the contrary.

"Holiness," though it may include sacrifice or restraint, is not a forgetting of the body but really "wholeness," a way of not living a life in pieces. "Integrity" may be another way of thinking of it. In Lent we seek to be whole again, or whole in a new way.

In the wilderness, in a life that is even just a little simpler, a little slower, and little more mindful, we can discover or rediscover the integrity to which the Holy One calls us.

(c) Jane Redmont

Desert Journey, Daily Bread: New Lenten Perspectives on Food and Fasting *an online retreat*

Desert Journey, Daily Bread: 

New Lenten Perspectives on Food and Fasting


an online retreat

Lent and Holy Week

February 10 to March 27, 2016

Jane Redmont

The retreat

Desert Journey and Daily Bread is an online retreat to deepen Lenten prayer and practice in the areas of food and fasting.


In the Desert Journey and 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.

Like the season of Lent itself, it invites us to repentance and conversion, but also to joy.

Note: We are also offering three other Lenten retreats this year, one long, like this one, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday (click here for more information on that retreat, which features writings by Thomas Merton), and two short, for those who prefer to make a shorter (or later) commitment of daily practice nine days in a row. (Click here for a February 22-March 1 retreat with writings by Howard Thurman; click here for a March 9-15 retreat with writings by Dorothee Soelle.)

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.  

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 Sunday.

This is an ecumenical retreat in the Western Christian tradition, though there will be some references to Orthodox Christian Lenten practices. Though your friendly retreat leader, and 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;
* 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.

There will be new material three times a week:

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 morning:

The spirituality of food in Lent: wisdom, queries, and spiritual practices related to food and water.

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).

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) 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 for the one-time-only sign-in mechanism. After that, the blog will always recognize you.


Registration and cost
 
To register, write me, Jane Redmont, at readwithredmont@earthlink.net if you plan to pay by check, and I will acknowledge your registration and send you the mailing address. I will also notify you when I receive your check.

OR

If you want to pay by credit or debit card or with a PayPal account, simply register and pay in a single transaction using the PayPal button below. (You can use that button and its secure connection to pay with a credit or debit card even if you don't have a PayPal account.)

The PayPal payment will record your name and e-mail address and serve as your registration. You will receive an acknowledgment from me within 24 hours.

Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.

If you are in a situation of financial stress, please write me and we can arrange for a discount, payment plan, or scholarship. (If you wish to help make more scholarships possible, just check the "benefactor" rate below.)

Retreat fees (choose one)

Regular rate $150.00 USD Benefactor rate $200.00 USD Early bird rate $120.00 USD Discounted rate $100.00 USD

Conversation, community, and privacy

Like all our online retreats, this one will include, but not require, opportunities for conversation with other participants. Make this retreat your own. It is a communal journey, as is the whole season of Lent, but a great part of it is also your own journey with God in your particular context. The retreat is an invitation to a guided experience with resources, support, and some accountability if you wish, but it is not a competition in holiness or practice. It can be helpful whether or not you are also involved in a parish or congregation in any part of the Christian family.


During the retreat, you can remain private and just read the blog and use the quotes, spiritual exercises, and prayers on your own.

or

If you wish, 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.

* * * * *

The theme of the desert journey is prominent in Lent.

We go to the desert, or to some form of desert or wilderness, in this season --not necessarily to a different place, but in some way 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.

The desert journey is for the sake of life. Life abundant. Life in God. Life in relationship.

So we clear space, or let God help us clear space, and time, to make room for the God of comfort and surprises and to make room for what is deepest and truest in our lives.

And because we not only live in our bodies but are our bodies, our practices are not only states of mind but bodily actions and attitudes.

"Spirituality" does not mean "outside the body" or "other than the body."

Quite the contrary.

"Holiness," though it may include sacrifice or restraint, is not a forgetting of the body but really "wholeness," a way of not living a life in pieces. "Integrity" may be another way of thinking of it. In Lent we seek to be whole again, or whole in a new way.

In the wilderness, in a life that is even just a little simpler, a little slower, and little more mindful, we can discover or rediscover the integrity to which the Holy One calls us.

(c) Jane Redmont