{"id":704,"date":"2024-07-20T22:31:22","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T21:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=704"},"modified":"2024-07-20T22:31:23","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T21:31:23","slug":"retreat-a-pause-with-a-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=704","title":{"rendered":"Retreat: A Pause with a Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reflection #80 (31st December 2023 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of another year, I thought it would be good for us to reflect on the theme of \u2018retreat\u2019, for a couple of reasons. In part it\u2019s because we kicked off our new programme of mini-retreats this weekend, with a New Year\u2019s mini-retreat yesterday afternoon, and we\u2019re planning to hold these mini-retreats every other month this year (if you\u2019ll permit me to include a plug here, the next one will be on the first weekend of March when we\u2019ll focus on \u2018The Stories of Our Lives\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another reason for today\u2019s focus on retreat, though, was a sense that the turn of the year is often a good time for taking stock \u2013 taking a pause \u2013 in this slightly peculiar post-Christmas week, where time loses all meaning, and we don\u2019t necessarily know what day it is. Whether or not you\u2019re one for making new year\u2019s resolutions, this is a time when many of us look back at the year just gone, and set our intentions, make plans, for the year to come. We take time for some sort of reflective pause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

And I suspect that quite a few of us really need to take that time to press pause and take stock. Many of us have day-to-day responsibilities \u2013 whether that\u2019s a \u2018day job\u2019, or work within the home, volunteering commitments, or the practical and emotional load of caring for others (and ourselves) \u2013 many of us are in some sense \u2018always on\u2019. There are always so many plates to be spun, people and things clamouring for our attention, we can find ourselves playing whack-a-mole with all the pressing issues that need to be dealt with. We might find ourselves running on autopilot in order to make it through the day, just putting one foot after the next to keep on keeping on, and it can be really hard to intentionally say \u2018STOP!\u2019 and step off that treadmill (while the to-do list is, inevitably, incomplete). It can feel impossible to let go of responsibilities \u2013 or at least it never seems the right time \u2013 maybe we are worried about getting further behind and never catching up again \u2013 or fearful of letting others down. Some of us only stop when or mind or body cries \u2018NO MORE\u2019 and we burn out or fall into a slump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes a conscious \u2013 and somewhat counter-cultural \u2013 effort to stop, to unplug, to turn away from the habits and demands of our everyday life and put something else at the centre of our attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to some degree we are already doing that by coming here for an hour or so on Sunday mornings \u2013 well done, gold star, you made it! \u2013 even setting this much time aside on a regular basis is a great start. As I already mentioned, a few of us spent our Saturday afternoon on a mini-retreat yesterday \u2013 and I know some of us have experience of attending residential retreats down the years \u2013 several of you have spoken of precious times spent at the Othona Community, or the Amaravati Buddhist monastery, with Quakers at Woodbrooke, or of course our own beloved Nightingale Centre in Great Hucklow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we think of the spiritual practice of retreat, perhaps we most often imagine going away for a few days, ideally to somewhere tranquil and beautiful, so that we are physically removed from our everyday surroundings, and thus from all reminders of our responsibilities, troubles, and distractions. Such retreats can take many forms \u2013 we might be in solitude or in company \u2013 in silence or in deep conversation \u2013 more active or more contemplative \u2013 with a leader, or spiritual director, or self-guided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roger Housden has this to say on the matter: \u2018A contemporary retreat may consist of anything from an arduous spiritual discipline to an art class or a hike through wild and sacred terrain. Whichever you choose, the broad common purpose remains the same: to return the individual to themselves through the cultivation of silence and awareness\u2026. Whichever form or tradition you choose, the retreat will be largely determined by your own motivation and intention. You will get out of it what you put in. In fact, you will even get more, because the retreat will magnify your intention.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words from Roger Housden. We need to note of caution though \u2013 in recent years there\u2019s been a certain amount of commercial appropriation of the language of \u2018retreat\u2019 \u2013 not everything that describes itself as a retreat has this higher spiritual intent. And Ruth Haley Barton has something to say on this matter, she says: \u2018The problem with trying to talk about retreat these days is that the word itself has been severely compromised, both in the secular culture, and in the religious subculture. In business circles, a (so-called) retreat is often a long meeting from which you cannot go home\u2026 Typically, we work harder on \u201cretreat\u201d than in our normal working days, and of we come home exhausted. The same is true in church culture. We might be accustomed to\u2026 retreats that include\u2026 a carefully orchestrated programme\u2026 While such events are wonderful opportunities for building community and creating space for focused teaching and interaction\u2026 they can also be stimulating to the extent that no-one leaves rested or in touch with their own souls \u2013 at least not in the way Jesus encouraged his disciples to \u201ccome away with me and rest a while\u201d.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words from Ruth Haley Barton. So retreat is not just \u2018switching off\u2019 or \u2018taking time out\u2019 \u2013 important as those things are \u2013 there\u2019s a real need for regular (very <\/em>regular) time set aside for proper rest and reconnection (something like a weekly sabbath practice perhaps, but that\u2019s a topic for another day). The practice of spiritual retreat has got this extra dimension to it \u2013 an intentionality \u2013 that\u2019s why I gave today\u2019s service that sub-title \u2018A Pause with a Purpose\u2019. If you\u2019re God-minded, if God-language makes sense to you, then perhaps it makes most sense to conceive of retreat as \u2018spending time with God\u2019. If God-language doesn\u2019t speak to you, you could perhaps think of spiritual retreat as a time of intentional re-centring, re-orienting, re-membering what really matters, and re-setting your course in life. You might have noticed a lot of \u2018RE-\u2018 words cropped up in our RE-adings\u2026 Philip Zaleski spoke of being \u2018re-freshed, re-seeded, re-inspired, re-newed\u2019. Trevor Mitchell suggested we should re-collect and re-examine what is most important to us, what we want to be at the centre of our lives. Retreat is for re-flecting about what\u2019s on track, and what isn\u2019t, and getting back in touch with your purpose. It\u2019s a time to ask ourselves \u2018who, what, and where I am in relation to God, self, others, and the world.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this, Joan Chittister speaks of the great value of \u2018cultivation of a reflective soul and a disciplined mind that goes regularly into \u201cretreat\u201d\u2014into that space where we look, first of all, at what we set out to be \u2013 and then look consciously at what we are now doing to get there.\u2019 She reminds us that retreat isn\u2019t self-indulgent navel-gazing but part of a healthy life of service: a space for transformation, which equips us to fulfil our purpose, and changes us so that we might play our part in changing the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what happens when it is time to go home? Retreat is necessarily a limited time of withdrawal and at some point we need to re-enter the fray and face the everyday life we temporarily left behind. Margaret Silf has described this sometimes jarring transition: \u2018The experience of retreat was an invitation to wholeness. It was easy in the seclusion of the retreat setting to become more aware of what helps to make us whole. When we go home, it can feel as though any trace of that wholeness has fragmented again, leaving us struggling to keep all the bits and pieces of our lives together.\u2019 And Silf suggests trying to make micro-moments of reconnection part of your daily life once the retreat is over \u2013 making at least a little space for time in nature, time with art, music, literature, or prayerful journalling \u2013 perhaps with a focus on \u2018analogue activities\u2019 which get us away from screens for a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I want to leave you with some words of encouragement to make the practice of retreat a part of your life \u2013 encouragement to look for opportunities to create \u2018a pause with a purpose\u2019 \u2013 whether that\u2019s going away to a beautiful retreat centre for a few days, or joining an online mini-retreat for a few hours, or making space for tiny creative moments of retreat here and there. And I\u2019ll end with some words from Joan Chittister which spell out exactly why it is so vital to do so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Retreat times remind us always to make the space to begin\u2014again\u2014and in the midst of the cloying demands of work and family, of money-making worries and the stressors of social systems, to fix the eye of the heart on the really important things of life\u2026 there must be regular times set aside to go down into these inner recesses of the soul once more, alone and centred, to take another look, a new kind of look, at ourselves\u2026 Retreat, reflection, Sabbath, and soul-space are of the essence of the monastic spirit\u2014not for our sake alone, but for the sake of those who depend on us to make the promise of creation new again.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May it be so, for the greater good of all. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An audio recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nhttps:\/\/www.kensington-unitarians.org.uk\/pod2011\/KU_jane.blackall_hybrid_sermon_31.12.23.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n