RETREATS
PEDRA retreats involve a combination of teaching and experiential learning. Our retreats have a spiritual focus within the Christian faith tradition and draw on current psychological insights.
A retreat day typically begins with a teaching session followed by a “meditation of the hands”. These meditations do not require artistic talent but do ask participants to engage in a hands-on activity that makes space for quiet reflection, providing an opportunity to symbolize what has been important to them about what they have heard.
Afternoons usually start with another teaching session followed by small group workshops on topics relevant to the theme of the retreat.
PEDRA retreats end with an informal worship and communion service, at which time participants have the option of briefly sharing with one another what they found most impactful about the retreat.
Exploring Prayer: Wonderful Ways to Waste Time with God
When we reach out for and voluntarily pause in God’s presence, we create space for the possibility of peace in our busy and complicated lives. In her book The Breath of God, Nancy Roth invites readers to see themselves as “wasting time with God” when they first undertake the practice of Centering Prayer. Wasting time may be the way we feel about prayer in general, especially when we don’t know how to pray or aren’t convinced God will be interested in listening to us. If you are a frequent visitor to Lectio 365 you may have seen this quote from Jill Webber: “As I have practiced prayer over the years, I have found that occasionally I lose any sense of connection with God. I’ve discovered that sometimes that’s an invitation to seek God out in other ways, to expand my prayer expressions, or even where I pray!”
If any of this resonates for you, the Exploring Prayer retreat may be just what you’ve been waiting for! It introduces participants to new possibilities for prayer and reminds them of old favorites.The morning session includes an opportunity to experience Lectio Divina (sacred reading) and a meditation of the hands (prayer without words). Afternoon sessions encourage participants to keep a prayer journal, and offer breakout groups about contemplative, structured, and whole body prayer. Participants also receive an Exploring Prayer Resources booklet with a description and instructions for more than a dozen different ways to waste time in prayer.
What it Means to Live as Forgiven People
Christianity is centered on the importance of forgiveness and the restoration of broken relationships with God and with one another. Unfortunately, we often forget what it means to live this out in our day-to-day lives. Equally problematic, we often urge one another to “just forgive”, glossing over the costliness of God’s forgiveness and by extension the costliness of our human forgiveness. We also fail to pay attention to the difference between forgiveness (choosing to not punish someone for their wrongdoing) and reconciliation (re-entering a relationship after it has been repaired and trust has been rebuilt). When we do this, we put one another at risk of re-injury and abandon one another to deal with the consequence of that risk. We haven’t extended enough grace to one another’s justified hesitance and reluctance, haven’t given one another the time or the ongoing support in discerning whether it is safe and wise to re-enter a relationship, or considered what it means to forgive without reconciling.
This retreat is designed to support us in our efforts to live as forgiven people. It looks at scripture through the lens of living redeemed lives that know the blessings of being forgiven and of offering forgiveness to free both us and the person who has hurt us from the burden of past wrongdoing. It also acknowledges and emphasizes the important differences between forgiveness and reconciliation. It endorses forgiveness for past wrongdoing and simultaneously insists that a relationship worth restoring requires that the hurtful person undertake and the kind of changes that make it safe to re-enter a relationship with them.