Sometimes in the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, / We can hear the whisper in the heart / Giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.
—Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart
Friday
Check In: Any time after 3pm
Supper 530pm (Bean and Kale Soup by Patty-bread, butter and lemondessert by Ann)
Alice is bringing gluten free cottage cheese quiche, salmon salad and winter salad with apples and pecans
Barbara is bringing banana bread and a gluten free dessert
7pm Welcome
Center for a moment and imagine yourself back at the gate to this place, what do you want to leave at the entrance during this retreat? Remember you can pick it back up if you want to on the way out. What do you hope to experience while you are here?
God Is My Source by Karen Drucker
How Could Anyone Ever Tell You
(Ann) Chant: (tune from Taize, Bless the Lord My Soul)
God’s life is living in us. We are aware of life in us. God’s love is living in us. We are aware of love in us.
Meditative Music-Who Lights the Stars at Night by Michael A Singer, Silent Prayer Begins
Saturday 730am Centering Prayer at Heron’s Nest
830am Breakfast Jan-quiche and coffee cake
? will say the grace,
10am Cynthia Bourgeault and Adyashantion Presence
1030am-11am Small Group Sharing
Ann will suggest possible questions for discussion.
(Suggested individual prayer prayed when in groups either silently or aloud: During this time of holy sharing, I give myself, my awareness, my attention, my hope and my heart to God for you. I surrender myself to God for you.)
11am-1130am Large Group Sharing
1130am-12 stretch, walk, lunch prep
12-130pm Lunch Lynn-baked potato bar with Caesar salad (social time) Ann will sing a blessing
2pm-3pm Cynthia Bourgeault and Adyashanti present on suffering and forgiveness
3pm-4pm Process
4pm-5pm Free Time-read, nap, walk, singing etc.
5pm chair yoga with Liza
6pm Supper Veggie Pasta Casseroleand green salad by Christina
730pm Meditation led by Adyashanti
Sunday730am Centering Prayer in Heron’s Nest
9am Breakfast (gluten free quinoa and apple breakfast casserole with cherry drizzle and custard-Liza)
1030am Closing Ritual
I Am the Light of My Soul
May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You
What have you received during this retreat? What are you taking with you?
Reading from CAC Daily Meditations Sunday, March 10, 2024
Richard Rohr invites us to enter the Reign of God—what he describes as the “Really Real”—even though we face many difficult realities in our lives.
Jesus announced, lived, and inaugurated for history a new social order. He called it the Reign or Kingdom of God, and it became the guiding image of his entire ministry. The Reign of God is the subject of Jesus’ inaugural address (Mark 1:15; Matthew 4:17; Luke 4:16–21), his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), and most of his parables.
Once this guiding vision of God’s will became clear to Jesus after his baptism and time alone in the desert, everything else came into perspective. In fact, Matthew’s Gospel says Jesus began to preach “from then onward” (4:17). He had his absolute reference point that allowed him to judge and evaluate everything else properly. [1]
What we discover in the New Testament, especially in Matthew’s Gospel, is that the Reign of God is a new world order, a new age, a promised hope begun in the teaching and ministry of Jesus—and continued in us. I think of the Reign of God as the Really Real. That experience of the Really Real—the “Kingdom” experience—is the heart of Jesus’ teaching. It’s Reality with a capital R, the very bottom line, the pattern-that-connects. It’s the goal of all true religion, the experience of the Absolute, the Eternal, what is. [2]
In order to explain this concept, it may be helpful to say what it’s not: the “Kingdom” is not the same as heaven. Many Christians have mistakenly thought that the Reign of God is “eternal life,” or where we go after we die. That idea is disproven by Jesus’ own prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). As always, Jesus joins earth and heaven.
“Thy Kingdom come” means very clearly that God’s realm is something that enters into this world, or, as Jesus often says, “is close at hand.” We shouldn’t project it into another world. It’s a reality that breaks into this world now and then, when people are like God.
God gives us just enough tastes of God’s realm to believe in it and to want it more than anything. In his parables, Jesus never says the Kingdom is totally now or totally later. It’s always now-and-not-yet. We only have the first fruits of the Kingdom in this world, but we experience enough to know it’s the only thing that will ever satisfy us. Once we have had the truth, half-truths can’t satisfy us anymore. In its light, everything else is relative, even our own life. When we experience the Kingdom or love of God, it becomes ultimate and real truth for us.
When we live inside the Really Real, we live in a “threshold space” between this world and the next. We learn how to live between heaven and earth, one foot in both, holding them precious together. [3]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 1996, 2022), 3, 4.
[2] Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan, 27, 30.
[3] Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan, 117, 119.
Prayer Dance: Dweller on the Threshold by Van Morrison
1130am Cleanup and Departure
Bring: check made out to Cedar Cross for 110.00, single size sheets, towels, personal items, flowing scarf, journals, pen, candle, flashlight, clipboard for writing on-if you have one, if you have more than one bringsome to share
Ann’s list: retreat schedule, speaker, HDMI cord, candles, matches, fire starters,instruments,
Please consider turning off your phone while on this retreat.
No comments:
Post a Comment