How many of us rush through our days while barely paying attention? Watch TV while also scrolling on our phones? Respond to a friend’s text with “K” or an emoji, then move on?
What are we rushing towards? What are we rushing away from?
What if you took the time to listen? To really listen: to your colleagues, to your friends and family, to yourself? In the quiet and fallow season of winter, join us for a 2 ½-day retreat in the heart of Nashville, TN for a time of exploration, centering, and contemplation.
Our time together will be informed by the Courage & Renewal® approach developed by Parker Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal, as well as by writings of wisdom from ancient times to the present day.
In our retreat community, we will:
- Explore ways to still the mind and open the heart
- Welcome the community’s reflections and wisdom in large and small groups
- Practice deep listening and honest sharing
- Enter personal space to hear the soul speak
- Become acquainted with the Circle of Trust® Touchstones, using them to help create a space that is nurturing and supportive of all
- Reflect through poetry, prose, music, and silence
- Explore nature from our meeting space: a treetop home in the woods—in the city near accommodations, yet beautifully apart
Our retreat will offer a Clearness Committee: a powerful one-and-a-half-hour process adapted from the Quaker tradition for Circle of Trust retreats. One person who chooses to think more deeply about an issue—transitional, vocational, relational, or spiritual—has the opportunity to be a “focus person” while a “committee” of three to six others listens and asks open, honest questions. Both the focus person and the committee members may have profound experiences in this unique way of supporting one another in community.
Everyone is welcome in our Circle of Trust, whether this work is new to you or is a familiar path. All who seek a deeper connection with others and with self may find a rich experience in our time together. Our sharing and activities throughout the retreat will be invitational: you may speak as you are moved, and your silence will also be respected in the Circle. Please come as you are: with questions, with doubts, with an open heart and a questing spirit.
Know that your presence here is a gift to yourself and to all who enter our Circle.
The Center for Courage & Renewal and its facilitators do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.
