Drawing from the Well of Christ
Contemplatively
Actively

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So may you loiter,
so may you linger
in the places and practices
where the Word makes a home.
- Jan Richardson
 

The phoebe sits on her nest
Hour after hour,
Day after day,
Waiting for life to burst out
From under her warmth.
Can I weave a nest of silence,
weave it of listening, listening,
Layer upon layer?
But first one must become small,
Nothing but a presence,
Attentive as a nesting bird...
- May Sarton

 

But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.
- Thomas Merton
 

Is there enough silence for the Word to be heard?
- Nan Merrill

A day of silence can be a pilgrimage in itself. - Hafiz
 

But what else is the contemplative life for? It is where the great risks can be faced, where folkloric religion can be outgrown and the naked Reality entered into by the naked spirit.

 -Beatrice Bruteau

 

Tree and stone will teach you what you never learn from the masters.
-Bernard of Clairvaux

 

For us, there is not just this world, there is also a layering of others. Time is not divided into minutes and hours, and everything has presence and meaning within this landscape of timelessness. -Joy Harjo

 

Ongoing general themes will be contemplation, transformation, and ‘true- self/false-self’ issues woven around the seasons of the natural world and Christian liturgical year.  Participants in any stage of the spiritual journey are welcome, though it should be understood that the desire to find God in silence and the willingness to be present to oneself are prerequisites.  This program is geared for those seeking  to grow through experience rather than through study and more informational sessions. 

Participants will make use of a few basic reflection questions in responding to moderate, diverse reading each month, noticing places of “resonance, resistance, and realignment.”*  Each will be invited to share reflections and quotes from the readings that felt significant to them, and speak to how they are being drawn (or not) to apply what they are reading. Although the reading is an important component of the program,  keeping a mindful attitude between our monthly gatherings, and developing personal prayer practices will bring an even greater richness to our sessions in community.  For some, the program will provide a sacred container for what we don’t have time for at home.

Monthly sessions begin with a worship time in common, followed by brief presentations.  We will place emphasis on time spent in contemplative group discussion of readings with ample time for  silence, both as individuals and in community.  Opportunities will be provided for contemplation with poetry and  visual images related to specific monthly themes.  Facilitators will plan a careful blend of content, community, and contemplation although the depth of the curriculum will be determined by the community of participants.  As the months pass, we trust that graced spiritual friendships will nurture the participants in ways of deepened Love and prayer.

*Judy Cannato,  Field of Compassion

Journey into Silence

This series of quiet retreat days offers community and support for your contemplative journey in a beautiful, consecrated space. Together we will step aside from our inner and outer chaos and make a clearing for God.  Though emphasis will be more on experience than acquiring information, you will be responsible for a modest amount of reading which will be discussed each month. Your response to the readings, prayer together, and time for silence will be significant aspects of the program's content.  

  We do not need to be experts or geniuses to remember that all of existence is precious.
We do not need cathedrals to remind ourselves to experience the sacred.
We need only to be deeply respectful of what is fundamentally true;
and that is what we discover when we center ourselves in silence.
- Gunilla Norris
 

Humility, it seems, is the gentle acceptance of that most tender place inside ourselves that throbs with the pain of separation from the Beloved. It is that deep knowingness that identification with the false self brings nothing but further separation. It is an initially reluctant dropping down into the emptiness and an ultimate experience of peace when we stop doing and rediscover simple being...
- Mirabai Starr

Themes   traveling the paths of  transformation month by month:

September: Opening retreat Friday through Sunday with opportunities to join the Sisters of the Precious Blood in praying the Psalms. Short presentation on the Eastern Orthodox approach to contemplation and spiritual formation, with instruction and experience in praying with images, chant & sung prayer.

October: Heartful work, craft as prayer, sacred gesture, mindfulness & attention

November: Giving and receiving, gratitude, hospitality of heart, prayer for the world

December: Darkness, light and shadow, suffering, integrating the joy and sorrow (The “Bright Sadness”)

January: Epiphany, ways of seeing, mystical hope, beauty

February: Love and relationship, sacred wounds, fear, attachment

March: GUIDED SILENT RETREAT DAY

April: Resurrection, birth, transformation and the New Cosmology

May: The consecration of time, balance, Sabbath
 

Dates

Note that besides the opening retreat, the other meeting dates are the third Saturday of each month. (Locations vary by month.)

September 7-9, 2012 (Mariawald, Reading, PA)
October 20, 2012 (Still Waters, Carlisle, PA)
November 17, 2012 (Still Waters, Carlisle, PA)
December 15, 2012 (Stock’s, Mechanicsburg, PA)
January 19, 2013 (Stock’s, Mechanicsburg, PA)
February 16, 2013 (Stock’s, Mechanicsburg, PA)
March 16, 2013 (Still Waters, Carlisle, PA)
April 20, 2013 (Still Waters, Carlisle, PA)
May 18, 2013 (Still Waters, Carlisle, PA)

Program Locations  (see dates)

 Mariawald Renewal Center
1094 Welsh Road
Reading PA 19607    
www.mariawaldrenewal.com

Still Waters Retreat Center
501 W. Slate Hill Road
Carlisle, PA 17013
 

Stock’s Home
701 Green Acres St.
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
 

Leadership: 

Roland and Melissa Stock

Melissa and Roland began leading various aspects of prayer ministry in the 1980's. They are trained spiritual directors and share a love of contemplative spirituality. Together they practice welcoming sunrises, journaling, and centering prayer.

Roland has led retreats on Male Spirituality and is in his second year as a participant in the Men4Directions program offered by Oasis. Roland’s work as a luthier, woodworker, and carpenter serves as a spiritual discipline for him. He has transformed their home into a retreat environment, making a dream of theirs into a reality.

Melissa serves on staff with Spiritual Direction for Spiritual Guides. She facilitates Taize services in various locations and offers spiritual direction from her study at home.  Roland and Melissa attend Community Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pa.  They find God in the outdoors, in the laughter of their grandchildren, and through the arts.
 

Tentative Flow of a Day:

9:30    Gather (Hot beverages available)

 10:00  Opening worship

             brief reflections

             centering prayer

 11:00  Retreat space *

 12:30  Lunch (December & March in silence)           

 1:30    Sharing (short passages from monthly readings chosen by participants)

 2:30    Retreat space *   

 4:00    Sharing (resonance, resistance, application)

 5:00    Benediction and departure

 * Handouts are provided with suggestions for retreat space, but participants are always welcome to bring their own reading or other work.

Within each of us there is a silence
---a silence as vast as the universe.
We are afraid of it...and we long for it.

When we experience that silence, we remember
who we are: creatures of the stars, created
from the birth of galaxies, created
from the cooling of this planet, created
from dust and gas, created
from the elements, created
from time and space...created
from silence.

- Gunilla Norris
 

*Essential Readings:

September: A Short Trip to the Edge, Scott Cairns

October:  A Grain of Truth, Ross Laird

November:  Becoming Who You Are, James Martin, SJ

December:  Falling Upward, Richard Rohr

January:  A Sunlit Absence, Martin Laird

February:  Anam Cara, John O’Donohue

March:  The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Cynthia Bourgeault

April:  Field of Compassion, Judy Cannato

May: Sabbath, Wayne Muller

Monthly selections: Simple Ways Toward the Sacred, Gunilla Norris

*A notebook of additional readings provided at the opening retreat (journal articles, reflection questions, poems, etc. )

(see additional optional and recommended resources below)

Tuition

TUITION: $950
Plus an Application Fee of $150 (non-refundable after program begins*)

If application received by May 30:
discount $50 from application fee
If application received after August 15:
add $50 to application fee

Tuition may be paid in full at any time. However, suggested payment plan is $150 due upon acceptance into the program (by August) and $100 on class meeting days October—May.

Participants are asked to pay for and attend all sessions.  Payments by Discover/MasterCard/Visa are welcome.

*If you withdraw from the program prior to September 1, 2012, we will refund your application fee less $50.

Some scholarship assistance available.
Call to inquire.

download brochure

I am interested in learning more about this program. 
Please note my interest in participating and have someone be in touch with me.

Optional Resources:

Poetic Medicine, John Fox (a resource for personal work during retreat space or at home)

Imaging the Word, United Church Press (arts and lectionary resources)

Friends of Silence, Free Newsletter  – FRIENDS OF SILENCE, 11 Cardiff Lane, Hannibal, MO 63401

Recommended books on contemplation and transformation:

Mystical Hope, Cynthia Bourgeault

Living in the Presence, Tilden Edwards

Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, James Finley

Into the Silent Land, Martin Laird

Inviting Silence, Gunilla Norris

The Inner Experience;  Views from the Christian Tradition, Lorraine Kisly, ed.

Shadow Dance, David Richo

The Naked Now; Learning to See as the Mystics See, Richard Rohr

A Path With Heart, Jack Kornfield

Open Door, Joyce Rupp