Day of Recollection: A Women's Retreat

A Day of Recollection: Women's Retreat

“My heart is restless until is rests in thee.” Augustine

“And so I saw most certainly that it is quicker and easier for us to come to the knowledge of God than to know our own soul; for our soul is so deeply grounded in God, and so endlessly treasured, that we cannot come to the knowledge of our soul until we first have knowledge of God, the creator to whom it is united.” Julian of Norwich

“Recollection, as understood in respect to the spiritual life, means attention to the presence of God in the soul.” The Catholic Encyclopedia

 Days of Recollection have a long history in the religious life. These days were regularly marked times to come away and go inward before God. They created space, and impacted the shape and rhythm of the religious life

On this retreat day we are borrowing creatively from this history in order to invite those who might be “wearied by the changes and the chances of this fleeting world” to start down the path of recollection in the company of others.

Our intent is to care for the body and the mind so that you might feel ready in a new way to attend to the presence of God in your soul. The retreat will be held within the beauty of the natural world, it will be tethered to God  by the common life of prayer and the wisdom of scripture and our attention will be fostered by the practices of mindfulness. Really good food will sustain our companionship and our energy for this soulful work.

Recollection is the practice of gathering the fragmented part of our lives,  bringing them into an interior space to be quiet with ourselves before God. This is hard to do in the rush of our lives and the distraction of our days. It is also hard for many of us to do on our own. We finally get a moment of quiet and we feel unsettled and unsure of ourselves,“What do I do now?”  In the unsettledness we begin to feel restless or anxious or just plain too exhausted to stay present. Our hope is that this day will be an oasis at the beginning of a journey from which you walk away hopeful.

For some, recollection in its multitude of forms will be an established practice. We hope that you too will join on this day, to bring your experience and wisdom to the group, and to receive new insights, companionship and encouragement in your pursuit of this inner life before God.

The purpose of this day long retreat is to equip those who are hungry for recollection with a variety of tools for their inward journey and to tend to our relationship with the natural world and the bonds of affection which foster and strengthen our capacity to be comfortable in our inner being where we can contemplate God in our soul.   

Agenda

Between 8 and 8:45 Arrive, get settled and drink good coffee and tea.

8:55 An invitation to Recollection and Attention. Kirsten and Melody

9:30 An slightly instructed walk through the office of Morning Prayer and the use of the Psalter: Kirsten Pinto Gfroerer

10:30 Standing on the beach with each other, learning names and faces, looking out, and eating if we are hungry.

11:00 Contemplating Scripture in a circle with Val Neufeld

12:30 A moment of Mid Day Prayer and then Bread and Soup and Beach-combing

2:00 The practice of Mindfulness with Melody Driedger

3:30 Revisiting Recollection: a forest walk, a time to create, or simply a chance to sit and reflect. 

4:30  Evening Prayer on the beach

5:00 A Feast

7: 00 Heading home in the Gloaming

Kirsten Pinto Gfroerer is a lay theologian, and counsellor living near the woods on Lake Winnipeg. Her book Anchorhold: Corresponding with Revelations of Divine Love contemplatively explores the theology of Julian of Norwich. The Viridescent Circle Podcast is her newest project. To learn more about Kirsten’s work visit www.kirstenpintogfroerer.com

Kirsten will be facilitating this Day of Recollection, and inviting us to this way of being. She will be  walking participants through the forest and through the offices of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer focussing especially on the rhythm of the psalter as a way of rooting us in the natural world, in our humanity on our pilgrimage to God.

Val Neufeld has been a counsellor for the past 35 years - for many years at a women’s health clinic and for the past 7 years in private practice.  She  grateful for this role where she has been given the opportunity to bear witness to the stories and lives of others.  Val has a strong and growing faith in Christ and a trust and a growing love of Scripture.    

VIn this time together with you - my hope is to create a space where we can share about ourselves and about our relationship to scripture.  I will share the way that scripture has impacted my understanding of myself and the world around me and how it impacts the work I do as a listener to the lives of others.

I know that we all have our own personal stories and experiences with scripture. So in time through circle, we will be given an opportunity to share and explore together. Circle is a simple and wonderful way of sharing of ourselves and listening to one another. Circle is a method I have used numerous times in my practice and I have found that it creates such a rich and nourishing space and I would love to share this with you in our time together 

Melody Driedger is a counsellor/therapist who has worked in various places over her career. Some of her favorite ways to help people heal have been by using creative arts, movement, the natural world and even horses for a brief time. Most recently Melody has been studying and practicing mindfulness and MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) which has been a good journey; it has helped her in her work and just as significantly has been a journey of discovery for her personally. She has always loved words and now she is learning to love silence.

Melody will be sharing what she knows about mindfulness and leading some basic mindfulness meditations and mindful movement practices. If participants would like they should bring a yoga mat and wear comfortable clothing.