Note: This Lent, we offer TWO kinds of online retreats:
Longing and Renewal in Lent
an online (blog-based) retreat
March 5*-April 16, 2022
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| Mission Farm, Killington, VT (c) Jane Redmont 2013 |
Lenten retreats often invite us to withdraw into the wilderness. But two years into the COVID pandemic, we may feel that we have already been in a kind of wilderness!
Still, it is helpful to take some mindful, protected time apart in this season, especially when we are in need of refreshment and renewal.
This retreat will name and
ponder our personal and communal experiences of wilderness and
remember some of the wanderings and of our spiritual ancestors. (Forty
years in the desert, anyone?)
The retreat will also --especially-- reflect on and pray with biblical
and other images of water in the wilderness --verbal and visual. Lent and its practices, even those involving repentance, is for the sake of life. It prepares us to live as Resurrection people.
Come to this retreat as a time of refreshment to remember with your retreat companions God's nourishing
power, the enlivening presence of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus
Christ, who speaks of himself in the Gospel of John as the
living water. Bring your wanderings and wonderings.
Lent sometimes feels like a lesson in longing. It it also a time of kindling memory. But it is, perhaps even more, a time to root ourselves in the present moment. It is a time to deepen our compassion for the world and its creatures, but also our compassion for ourselves.
Each week of retreat will feature:
* prayers;
* images to contemplate;
* reminders of the broader context of the Lenten journey
2. Wednesday
3. Friday
A note on retreat fees:
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.
* The retreat offers resources (the quotes, spiritual exercises,
and prayers mentioned above, with some images as well to nourish you
visually and some melodies to speak to your heart and 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.
* In addition to receiving materials on (at least) three days of each week on the retreat blog, 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 or fourth week, you will be able to do so. There is a structure to offer you a steady rhythm, but you can also make the retreat your own. That's the beauty of a blog-based retreat.
* You can also choose whether to converse with your companions on the retreat (and with your friendly retreat leader) via the comments section of individual blogposts or whether to remain silent and anonymous. Again, do what works for your temperament and your needs.
* 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.
Register here:
Note: I am also offering a simpler, abridged one-evening Zoom version of this retreat on two separate evenings, March 15 and April 5. Details and registration for those are here.
