{"id":9253,"date":"2018-09-21T13:57:05","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T19:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transformingcenter.org\/?p=8719"},"modified":"2022-08-08T08:14:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T13:14:51","slug":"new-ruth-haley-barton-invitation-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transformingcenter.org\/2018\/09\/new-ruth-haley-barton-invitation-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cIf we don\u2019t come apart for while, we will come apart after awhile.\u201d
\n\u2013Dallas Willard<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Brad is a pastor whose church is going well. Attendance at weekend services is growing steadily, and they have just completed a building project that is enabling them to grow and provide a variety of ministries to meet needs within their growing congregation and the community surrounding them. People respond well to his preaching, and his church is known around town as being a church that cares.<\/p>\n

Brad is growing in stature and reputation among local leaders\u2014even becoming a respected voice regarding important issues facing the community\u2014which means he is in demand and attends many meetings. He is increasingly aware that it takes a full-time schedule and more to keep all the plates spinning. His two young children could use much more attention than he is able to give them, and his wife is exhausted from picking up the slack from his busy schedule. When he looks in her eyes he sees a hollowness that mirrors the emptiness he feels in his own soul, but the demands of being a young pastor whose star is rising, the husband and father of growing family, and a soul that is longing for more seem mutually exclusive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Emptiness\u00a0under the surface<\/h3>\n

Jen is a stay-at-home mom with four kids. She loves being a mom and sees this as her highest priority, yet over the years she has had a niggling sense that there is something more she is supposed to do with herself and her gifts. Her husband travels regularly for work, which means the lion\u2019s share of care for home and family falls to her; she has little time to devote to getting in touch with her spiritual desires and her sense of calling.<\/p>\n

Most of the time Jen\u00a0is able to put aside her questions and desires in order to make sure everyone else\u2019s needs are cared for, but lately they have been pressing in on her. She finds herself close to tears a lot, questioning her worth, questioning her motives, and wondering if she is doing enough for all the people who need her. She feels her sense of self slipping away and is alarmed by feelings of anger, unsettledness, and even depression.<\/p>\n

Something not quite right<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Jeremy is a gifted entrepreneur who is just starting to achieve recognition for the work his creative company is offering. The phone is ringing with offers of more work than their company can handle, and they have even received a few awards for their work. At the same time, there are internal problems in the company\u2014dissension in the ranks, stress fractures in the leadership, and temptations when he travels.<\/p>\n

Given the external accolades, he cannot understand why things feel so broken on the inside. He realizes that if he does not get some time away to reflect on what\u2019s really going on, to listen to God, and to get a handle on his motivations and behaviors, he may ruin everything he\u2019s worked so hard for due to bad decision-making\u2014 decision-making that is disconnected from discerning God\u2019s presence\u00a0and activity in his life.<\/p>\n

What do Brad, Jen and Jeremy have in common? They all need a retreat!<\/p>\n

A generous commitment to our friendship with God<\/h3>\n

Retreat in the context of the spiritual life is an extended time apart<\/em> for the purpose of being with God and giving God our full and undivided attention; it is, as Emilie Griffin puts it, \u201ca generous commitment to our friendship with God.\u201d The emphasis is on the words extended<\/em> and generous<\/em>. Truth is, we are not always generous with ourselves where God is concerned. Many of us have done well to incorporate regular times of solitude and silence into the rhythm of our ordinary lives, which means we\u2019ve gotten pretty good at giving God twenty minutes here and half an hour there. And there\u2019s no question we are better for it!<\/p>\n

But many of us are longing for more\u2014and we have a sense that there is<\/em> more if we could create more space for quiet to give attention to God at the center of our beings. We sense that a kind of fullness and satisfaction is discovered more in the silence than in the words, more in solitude than in socializing, more in spaciousness than in busyness.<\/p>\n

\u201cTimes come,\u201d Emilie Griffin goes on to say, \u201cwhen we yearn for more\u00a0of God than our schedules will allow. We are tired, we are crushed, we are crowded by friends and acquaintances, commitments and obligations. The life of grace is abounding, but we are too busy for it. Even good obligations begin to hem us in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biblical images for retreat<\/h3>\n

Fr. Ron Rolheiser points out three images for retreat used in Scripture that meet us in our yearning; all of them apply in different ways at different times.<\/p>\n