Category Archives: Past Programs and Art Exhibits

Paradox and Songs: A Springtime Circle of Trust® Retreat

Early spring in the Midwest offers a time of in-between. In the natural world, we find ourselves watching and waiting for the green of new life to arrive, even as we stand amidst the muck and deadness of last year.

Join us in the paradox of spring. Through song, poetry and community, we will explore the seasons we are leaving and entering in our own lives.  The retreat will utilize the Circle of Trust® approach developed by Parker Palmer and the Center for Courage and Renewal.

Hedgerow Initiative | Women and Christianity: Resilient Women, Emergent Church

History: who makes it and who tells it?  Who decides the story line and cast of characters?  Women’s scholars such as Church historian Mary T. Malone retell Christian history with women widening the path of discipleship through the centuries.  From the beginning a company of men and women accompany Jesus, follow him, and serve the emergent community.

The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation

In The Divine Dance, Fr. Richard Rohr (with Mike Morrell) writes, “Let the circle dance rearrange your Christian imagination.” The circle dance metaphor refers to the dynamic relationship and flow found in the Trinity. He is inviting us to understand and experience a God of love and renewal. No more God throwing thunderbolts from a throne. This is a Trinitarian God of transformation.

Seeking God in the Stillness: A Winter Silence Retreat

Winter’s stillness invites us to step away from the busyness of our everyday lives and enter into a time of quiet. This residential retreat in the Christian contemplative tradition is intended for those who wish to awaken more fully to the Divine presence. The days, which will be spent in silence, will be highly structured, with a pattern of 25-minute sitting meditations, teachings, and other contemplative practices.

Winter Solstice: Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Come illumine the darkness by lighting candles, singing songs, celebrating, mourning, embracing. Deep in the dark and cold, we’ll wander inward, find a spark, and kindle hope for the season.

Praying the Advent Names of God

Join artist Ansgar Holmberg and prayer poet Joan Mitchell to reflect and meditate on the Advent names of God. A blend of words and images will invite us to transform the traditional O Antiphons from the Advent Liturgy of the Hours into the context of evolutionary cosmology, opening new space for us to anticipate Jesus’ birth in our busy lives and our planet in peril.

Dreams: Illuminations of Our Deepest Emerging Self

The intention of this retreat is to support the dreamer’s capacity for entering into a deeper relationship with the images, colors, sounds and stories given to us in our dreams. The interplay of poetry, symbols, focusing, and touch drawing will help us enter this relationship.

The Way of Our People: Conversation with D. Richard Wright, Ojibwe Elder

Join an evening of conversation with author Donald Richard Wright, who observed and studied the ancient ceremonies of the Aboriginal Ojibwe in Little Black River Reserve, Ontario, Canada. Its ceremony maker was a 94-year-old Ojibwe-Cree who lived in the mountains near Edmonton.

Wright wanted to experience and research the ceremonies in order to understand “the fundamental cultural strengths of the Indian who became copious drinkers of alcohol,” he says. “As an aspirant to the Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minneapolis Deaconate Program, if I was to counsel the drinker, then my ministry became to know a little about these beliefs.”

Marking the Days: Creating Our Way Through Life’s Changes

Come reflect on a major change in your life in a three-part series using guided writing, guided calendar making, and guided book making. Bring a chosen life event, a list of related dates and a willingness to let your own creativity lead you in cherishing, remembering and letting go. You’ll reflect in your own words on your turning point, create a prim stav (a centuries-old calendar system for marking significant days), and make a small hand-sized book to hold both the calendar and your event-inspired writing.

A Festival of Women’s Voices on Jesus | Fall Soul Conference | The Strength of Her Witness: Theology in Women’s Voices

In this globally interconnected, lopsided world—marked by disparities, discord and violence—what witness can the church bring to the many issues that divide us from one another and the shared ecology in which we live? We are in need of theologies that will lead us in new directions–from opposition and dominance to new community and mutual respect for one another and all living creatures of Earth.