• 15 Feb 2025
  • Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Courage to Cultivate Community: February Mini-Retreat for Renewal & Resilience with Community Builders

February’s theme? Getting Lost & Found: Weathering the Storms with Wisdom from Within In late winter...feed your power from the inside out, in good company! Tap into & renew what's important to you.

Today we live in storms of many kinds, whether personal or in our communities, in our work and community building, or in the body politic. 

Yet the wisdom we need calls to us from within these storms. How can we notice our inner gifts, both for sheltering in the storms, and for finding our ways forward?

  • Bonus? For links to short reflections related to this theme written by John Lewis, Howard Thurman and Parker Palmer, click on their names. (No need to read these in advance – come and savor what they may surface for you!)

Come, experience a range of gentle, respectful options to notice the life that wants to live in you: inviting that to be savored, and to offer its wisdom.

This nourishes your power from the inside out. Recharge for now, and grow practices that keep you fresh for the long run because our communities have much to do in these challenging times.

  • If community builders burn out, then “the way things are” is the way they will stay.
  • So how about putting on your “oxygen mask” to catch your breath?

Who’s it for?

Anyone who’s engaged in building up their community or hopes to do so – however you define it, in any setting, paid or unpaid. Such communities can be found in neighborhoods and social movements, classrooms and congregations, ballfields and clubs, associations and networks, workplaces and beyond.

  • We who give so much to others may want to recharge personally or professionally.

All are welcome! This series is convened by Neighborhood Connections & the Neighbor Up Network, known for bringing people together across lines of difference. February 2025 is the 22nd monthly edition. (January 2025 included over 40 participants.)

Any prior experience needed?

  • None! No advance preparation either. Come as you are, who you are.
  • Each mini-retreat stands alone. And for those who can attend more than one, these build upon each other.
  • There are always newcomers. Please invite others to consider it.

How will we spend our time on the mini-retreat? 

  • We have a framework with a variety of whole-group, small group, and solitary activities. We’ll have time to tend to “the heart of the community builder.”

The respectful Courage & Renewal approach we’ll be using is seen by clicking here.

  • This invites the noise – the static – within us & around us to subside so each one there may hear more of our own inherent gifts, hopes & wisdom, in good company.
  • You’re not there to take care of anyone else but yourself.
  • Everything here is an invitation, not a demand.

We’ll share poetry, images and stories from a wide variety of traditions, including perhaps from the lives of those present. Art supplies are available for those who enjoy using those to explore their reflections.

Each month we tap different themes rooted in NE Ohio’s geographic seasons.

Who’s facilitating?

What are others saying about their mini-retreat?

It’s a time of Abundance… Wonder… Strengthening… Self-care (that) isn’t selfish… Grace… Growth… (Being) Rooted… Planting & Replanting… Sprouting (Participants words after April 2024 mini-retreat)

11:30am arrival and lunch served, socializing begins. (Semi-potluck; main dishes provided. Please bring something to share if you can, but don’t let that keep you away.)

11:55am the Circle opens so we can finish by 4pm, including breaks.

It’s important to be there from 11:55am to 4pm, since what we do builds on itself.

RTA Healthline stops exactly at that corner, then walk towards Chester Avenue. Often people catch rides home.

Free guarded parking curbside and in the lot nearer to Chester Avenue.

 

 

More key information and Frequently Asked Questions/FAQs are found on Eventbrite via the registration link.

Other mini-retreats in this monthly series? Themes to be sent to those who RSVP.
– Saturday, March 15, 11:30am – 4pm. For RSVP & FAQ visit https://bit.ly/3CpyV5H
– Saturday, April 26, 11:30am – 4pm. For RSVP & FAQ visit https://bit.ly/3EtyZBS

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for
the sound of the genuine in yourself.
It is the only true guide you will ever have.
And if you cannot hear it,
you will all of your life
spend your days on the ends of strings
that somebody else pulls.”
― Howard Thurman, former chaplain of Boston U & Howard U, mentor to generations of activists and community builders

Contact

Send a message to this program facilitator

Hidden
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.