Spiritual Retreats Religious Retreats Spiritual Getaways Serenity
Spiritual Retreats, Religious Retreats, Spiritual Getaways, Serenity, ...
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours...
Wordsworth wrote that 200 years ago, but he could have written it yesterday. In an age of BlackBerrys and e-mails, iPods and Xboxes, we find ourselves disconnected and adrift, in need of renewal and healing in a world that is "too much with us."
But how does one step off the grid of modern life and reconnect with the spiritual? The answer for millions of Americans is to go on a retreat. Retreats are a means to look within ourselves in stillness and silence, to locate what may be missing in our lives, but to also appreciate what has always been there. They require that we set aside only the deadlines and obligations that besiege our daily lives and find solace and sustenance in comforting quiet and simple routines. Ultimately, the attraction is in the subtraction.
As many have discovered, you don't have to go far to go deep. Spirituality websites can help anyone longing for some inner renewal find a place to retreat. lists more than 1,200 opportunities for retreats in the U.S. and Canada. According to Phil Stone, the website's cofounder, 55,000 retreat seekers visit the site a month. In a recent survey, Findthedivine asked what these people were looking for. More than 50 percent said they were looking to enhance spirituality, while 23 percent were seeking personal growth, and 6 percent were hoping to improve their appreciation of the outdoors or to express themselves artistically.
Retreats require that we set aside only the deadlines and obligations that besiege our daily lives.
Anne Luther, director of , a nonprofit organization representing more than 350 largely Catholic retreat centers, sees retreats as a starting point for a pursuit of peace and contentment. "Every spiritual search has to start somewhere. Even the smallest yearning for meaning is appealing to some kind of hunger in people. Spiritual seeking is all about listening to that hunger," she says.
If so, there are a lot of hungry travelers out there: according to Luther, some 2.5 million North Americans went on a spiritual retreat last year through her organization. And while most of the retreats RI represents have a Catholic affiliation, many of the visitors are not Catholic but are simply looking to jump-start their journey toward healing, growth, or enhancement of faith. "There's a lot of disillusionment with religious institutions these days, but interest in spirituality has never been greater," she says. "We are attempting to be ecumenical to meet these needs."
Stone and Luther both emphasize that retreats come in all sizes and missions. Visitors can follow a formal program or their own instincts; ponder God, nature, or self; spend nights in sleeping bags or between organic-cotton sheets. And prices can range from pay-what-you-choose to $500 or more a day. The variety can be a bit bewildering to newcomers, but it is helpful to loosely categorize retreats as faith-based, nonreligious, or meditation-oriented.
It wasn't a personal crisis that made Thomas begin to think about God. She says she just "woke up" and thought, Where was my religious experience? She looked at people in her Great Falls, Virginia, Methodist congregation who "by virtue of how they lived, acted, and treated other people seemed to have a relationship with God," and she asked them for guidance. "They told me they prayed and read the Bible every day and, when they needed to talk to God, He was there." Thomas joined a centering prayer group and found that sitting with others also trying to open themselves to God gave her support and inspiration. Encouraged, she began going on group retreats, including two weekends at in Marriottsville, Maryland, which she found through Findthedivine.com.
An ecumenical center, Bon Secours is run by the Catholic order the Sisters of Bon Secours and is set amid 313 acres of rolling hills and hiking trails. The rooms are simply furnished, containing one dresser, a twin or double bed, a rocking chair, and a desk. The bathrooms are down the hall from the rooms and are communal, though separated by gender. Meals are served cafeteria-style with options for vegetarians, a full salad bar, and different entrées every day. Across the hall from the main dining room are two smaller dining halls for silent retreats.
A 55-foot labyrinth is one of Bon Secours's more striking features. The focal point of a one-acre "sacred space," its stonework is laid in a pattern based on the design of the famed Chartres labyrinth set on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral around 1220. "Everybody does the labyrinth," says Thomas, describing the thoughtful slow walk visitors take. "It can take as long as you make it; it is a very individual thing."
Not all the retreats at Bon Secours focus exclusively on religion and faith. One that Thomas attended was based on yoga and another was a near-silent, contemplative meditation retreat.
Though the retreats were structured, Thomas says that of her two experiences at Bon Secours, she enjoyed her solitary nature rambles best. "I liked to get out early in the morning and jog for an hour or so in the woods. I would see lots of wildlife, like deer and foxes. It gave me time to be alone with my thoughts," she says.
For Tim Siegel, 48, who frequently visits the (FWC) near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, being in nature engenders closeness with God. The FWC is located in 1,400 lushly wooded acres and sponsors events such as silent retreats, music festivals, and poetry readings. Siegel, the director of major gifts for a Washington, D.C.-based conservation group, has been a board member of the FWC for two years. A few times each year, he heads off alone to the center, where he either camps in its meadow or sleeps in a rustic wooden yurt, a domed shelter that sleeps four or five. He cooks on an open fire pit, hikes miles of the seldom-used trails, watches wildlife, and marvels at the night sky. "The quiet and solitude help me think," he says. "I'm a practicing Quaker, and it fits very well with our concept of dwelling in silence."
The FWC also offers a tree house, which has a roof and no walls and sleeps up to 15, and a cabin with two bedrooms. When Siegel brings his teenage daughter or a friend or two with him, they tend to prefer the cabin, with meals prepared by the preserve's resident manager.
Religious leaders too seek and enjoy the benefits of solitude that come from a retreat, even one hosted by another faith. Five or six times a year, Nancy Copeland-Payton, 55, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Sandpoint, Idaho, drives 200 miles to the , a community of 60 Catholic nuns in Cottonwood, Idaho. "There's always the smell of fresh-baked bread, and the sisters pray together three times a day. It's just such a nourishing atmosphere, and I feel a deeper sense of being grounded in God's presence," she says. St. Gertrude's hosted more than 1,000 retreat participants last year. It offers peace and quiet, spiritual direction, an extensive library, and a museum of the history of northern Idaho. Most retreatgoers stay in the new $3.4 million Spirit Center, which has 22 double-occupancy rooms with individual bathrooms and either two twin beds or a full bed for couples. Most rooms have views of the surrounding prairie, which is covered with rivers, lakes, and ponderosa pine, fir, and spruce. Accommodations are also offered at the Farmhouse, a large single-family home that sleeps 14 and is perfect for group retreats, and the Solitude House, which serves as the chaplain's residence but has four bedrooms with full beds, a kitchenette, and a living room area for guests. When she is not participating in a formal retreat at St. Gertrude's, Copeland-Payton enjoys filling her time with walking the monastery's grounds, praying, eating, and talking with the devout sisters. Mostly, the minister loves deepening her own spiritual understanding through the ideas and perspectives of a different tradition. "Retreats help me discover more of God's possibilities," she says.
Spiritual Retreats
When it s time to step away from the distractions of everyday life and get back in touch with your inner self you don t have to go far to go deep
Sometimes old poets say it best. Consider these lines from the great English Romantic William Wordsworth:The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours...
Wordsworth wrote that 200 years ago, but he could have written it yesterday. In an age of BlackBerrys and e-mails, iPods and Xboxes, we find ourselves disconnected and adrift, in need of renewal and healing in a world that is "too much with us."
But how does one step off the grid of modern life and reconnect with the spiritual? The answer for millions of Americans is to go on a retreat. Retreats are a means to look within ourselves in stillness and silence, to locate what may be missing in our lives, but to also appreciate what has always been there. They require that we set aside only the deadlines and obligations that besiege our daily lives and find solace and sustenance in comforting quiet and simple routines. Ultimately, the attraction is in the subtraction.
As many have discovered, you don't have to go far to go deep. Spirituality websites can help anyone longing for some inner renewal find a place to retreat. lists more than 1,200 opportunities for retreats in the U.S. and Canada. According to Phil Stone, the website's cofounder, 55,000 retreat seekers visit the site a month. In a recent survey, Findthedivine asked what these people were looking for. More than 50 percent said they were looking to enhance spirituality, while 23 percent were seeking personal growth, and 6 percent were hoping to improve their appreciation of the outdoors or to express themselves artistically.
Retreats require that we set aside only the deadlines and obligations that besiege our daily lives.
Anne Luther, director of , a nonprofit organization representing more than 350 largely Catholic retreat centers, sees retreats as a starting point for a pursuit of peace and contentment. "Every spiritual search has to start somewhere. Even the smallest yearning for meaning is appealing to some kind of hunger in people. Spiritual seeking is all about listening to that hunger," she says.
If so, there are a lot of hungry travelers out there: according to Luther, some 2.5 million North Americans went on a spiritual retreat last year through her organization. And while most of the retreats RI represents have a Catholic affiliation, many of the visitors are not Catholic but are simply looking to jump-start their journey toward healing, growth, or enhancement of faith. "There's a lot of disillusionment with religious institutions these days, but interest in spirituality has never been greater," she says. "We are attempting to be ecumenical to meet these needs."
Stone and Luther both emphasize that retreats come in all sizes and missions. Visitors can follow a formal program or their own instincts; ponder God, nature, or self; spend nights in sleeping bags or between organic-cotton sheets. And prices can range from pay-what-you-choose to $500 or more a day. The variety can be a bit bewildering to newcomers, but it is helpful to loosely categorize retreats as faith-based, nonreligious, or meditation-oriented.
Deepening Your Faith Religious Retreats
Often, people find themselves confused or discouraged when they begin to think about faith and the divine. A religious retreat can help those who may feel spiritually lost and don't know where to turn. Martha Thomas, 55 and mother of three, found herself in that state six years ago when she realized, while sitting in church one Sunday, that she had no relationship with God and no idea how to get one.It wasn't a personal crisis that made Thomas begin to think about God. She says she just "woke up" and thought, Where was my religious experience? She looked at people in her Great Falls, Virginia, Methodist congregation who "by virtue of how they lived, acted, and treated other people seemed to have a relationship with God," and she asked them for guidance. "They told me they prayed and read the Bible every day and, when they needed to talk to God, He was there." Thomas joined a centering prayer group and found that sitting with others also trying to open themselves to God gave her support and inspiration. Encouraged, she began going on group retreats, including two weekends at in Marriottsville, Maryland, which she found through Findthedivine.com.
An ecumenical center, Bon Secours is run by the Catholic order the Sisters of Bon Secours and is set amid 313 acres of rolling hills and hiking trails. The rooms are simply furnished, containing one dresser, a twin or double bed, a rocking chair, and a desk. The bathrooms are down the hall from the rooms and are communal, though separated by gender. Meals are served cafeteria-style with options for vegetarians, a full salad bar, and different entrées every day. Across the hall from the main dining room are two smaller dining halls for silent retreats.
A 55-foot labyrinth is one of Bon Secours's more striking features. The focal point of a one-acre "sacred space," its stonework is laid in a pattern based on the design of the famed Chartres labyrinth set on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral around 1220. "Everybody does the labyrinth," says Thomas, describing the thoughtful slow walk visitors take. "It can take as long as you make it; it is a very individual thing."
Not all the retreats at Bon Secours focus exclusively on religion and faith. One that Thomas attended was based on yoga and another was a near-silent, contemplative meditation retreat.
Though the retreats were structured, Thomas says that of her two experiences at Bon Secours, she enjoyed her solitary nature rambles best. "I liked to get out early in the morning and jog for an hour or so in the woods. I would see lots of wildlife, like deer and foxes. It gave me time to be alone with my thoughts," she says.
For Tim Siegel, 48, who frequently visits the (FWC) near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, being in nature engenders closeness with God. The FWC is located in 1,400 lushly wooded acres and sponsors events such as silent retreats, music festivals, and poetry readings. Siegel, the director of major gifts for a Washington, D.C.-based conservation group, has been a board member of the FWC for two years. A few times each year, he heads off alone to the center, where he either camps in its meadow or sleeps in a rustic wooden yurt, a domed shelter that sleeps four or five. He cooks on an open fire pit, hikes miles of the seldom-used trails, watches wildlife, and marvels at the night sky. "The quiet and solitude help me think," he says. "I'm a practicing Quaker, and it fits very well with our concept of dwelling in silence."
The FWC also offers a tree house, which has a roof and no walls and sleeps up to 15, and a cabin with two bedrooms. When Siegel brings his teenage daughter or a friend or two with him, they tend to prefer the cabin, with meals prepared by the preserve's resident manager.
Religious leaders too seek and enjoy the benefits of solitude that come from a retreat, even one hosted by another faith. Five or six times a year, Nancy Copeland-Payton, 55, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Sandpoint, Idaho, drives 200 miles to the , a community of 60 Catholic nuns in Cottonwood, Idaho. "There's always the smell of fresh-baked bread, and the sisters pray together three times a day. It's just such a nourishing atmosphere, and I feel a deeper sense of being grounded in God's presence," she says. St. Gertrude's hosted more than 1,000 retreat participants last year. It offers peace and quiet, spiritual direction, an extensive library, and a museum of the history of northern Idaho. Most retreatgoers stay in the new $3.4 million Spirit Center, which has 22 double-occupancy rooms with individual bathrooms and either two twin beds or a full bed for couples. Most rooms have views of the surrounding prairie, which is covered with rivers, lakes, and ponderosa pine, fir, and spruce. Accommodations are also offered at the Farmhouse, a large single-family home that sleeps 14 and is perfect for group retreats, and the Solitude House, which serves as the chaplain's residence but has four bedrooms with full beds, a kitchenette, and a living room area for guests. When she is not participating in a formal retreat at St. Gertrude's, Copeland-Payton enjoys filling her time with walking the monastery's grounds, praying, eating, and talking with the devout sisters. Mostly, the minister loves deepening her own spiritual understanding through the ideas and perspectives of a different tradition. "Retreats help me discover more of God's possibilities," she says.