our retreats
Retreat, reflect, restore…but in relaxed ambiance and conversation with a small group of others at the newly created Spent Dandelion Monthly Retreats!
Over a spread of three days and two nights, we will savor good conversation, delicious cuisine, and wide and varied North Shore offerings.
Each retreat, while different in teachings, is uniform in cost and cancellation policy and follows the same general schedule.
Retreat Schedules and Policies
January 2019
Lighten our Darkness
From time to time, we’ll hear that someone—with luck, even yourself!—has had an “Epiphany.” Suddenly, even if for a brief moment, you’ve figured something out, and a hallelujah is in order! But as a season in the Church, people are sometimes mystified about Epiphany. Sandwiched between the High Seasons of Christmas and Lent, Epiphany gets short shrift. We might well need an epiphany about Epiphany! In these few days, we’ll shed some light on Epiphany, the season of light, of…
Find out more »February 2019
Hygge Hospitality: The Art of Welcome in an Age of Rancor
Whatever else a person can say about this day and age, it isn’t an era of gentleness of spirit. So during these gathered days, it seems appropriate to explore and deepen habits of hospitality, in joyful defiance of general societal crankiness. We’ll discover ways to welcome, reasons why people crave welcome, whether there are suspect motivatons to welcome, how to welcome with one’s own style and context, and, given the Scriptural call to welcome even the stranger and the enemy, whether…
Find out more »Love, Me and Love Me. Loving Another and Loving Self
Even if you are a romantic it can be quite difficult to figure out how to balance love for another and love for self. Sometimes, even in more or less healthy relationships, it can be difficult to understand where the lines between Other and Self are even drawn. If a break-up does occur, a person is sometimes left wondering what, if anything, can be healthily salvaged of the relationship in any sort of continual way to honor both the love…
Find out more »March 2019
Begin Anew: Reframing Lent
In a mere 40 days, Lent pulls together the strings and themes of death and life, sin and forgiveness, sleep and renewal. It has a reputation for being a somewhat gloomy season, but has the inner resources to be, rather, reflective and (believe it or not) hopeful. It’s no coincidence that the word ‘Lent’ means Spring! Because this retreat stands at the cusp of Lent, and of Spring, we will use these days to spend time (re)considering griefs, regrets, and…
Find out more »April 2019
He Is Risen! (So….Now What?)
Years ago, when we were living in Germany but my sister and her family were in Alaska—with a spread of 13 hours between us—I rang them up on our Easter morning and said, “He is Risen!” My brother-in-law responded, “Shh! Don’t tell us! We’re on the edge of our seats!” But now, fresh off Easter weekend, we are off of our seats, and saying Alleluia—in all time zones, even! And yet somehow, at sometime, we often end up sitting down…
Find out more »June 2019
Ponder Anew!
The Season of Pentecost is upon us! The Spirit is Loose! And...so seatbelts, everyone. The Holy Spirit is many things, but domesticated she is not. She is unpredicable, unwieldy, and unleashed. These few days ponder the Holy Spirit, a part of the Trinity with whom many Christian traditions haven’t quite known what to do, but who, in this day and age of institutions (d)evolving, and rapid change, and movements afoot, is getting renewed attention...in part because she’s giving us little…
Find out more »July 2019
Radical Faith
In certain company, the word ‘radical’ raises eyebrows and hackles. Turns out, though, that it’s as innocent as a radish—which, as it is, happens to be related to the word radical, because they both share the same word-parent: radix, which means ‘root.’ So if you’re, say, a radical Christian, it only means that you’re rooted in your faith. At the height of summer, when the gardens are beginning to burst with roots and shoots, it seems a good opportunity to…
Find out more »September 2019
Social Justice: The New Reformation Moment
When Martin Luther nailed those 95 Theses up on that door at Wittenberg, he nailed the Issue of the Day: Indulgences, namely the charging for the remission of sins. His emphasis on grace radically changed not just people’s perception of their relationship to God, but history itself. Justification as Gospel Truth has consoled people, reconciled people, and freed people. But it has also narrowed the understanding of the Gospel to that of the personal forgiveness of sins. Missed over the…
Find out more »October 2019
Is God Still Jealous, or Now Just Envious?
Exodus 20:5 and 34:14 don’t leave much to the imagination about God’s self-awareness: upshot of both is that God is a jealous God. Even life-long English speakers confuse, though, the words ‘jealous’ and ‘envious.’ ’Jealous’ means unwilling to share. ’Envious’ means wanting what someone else has. It’s often overlooked that in the First Commandment, God doesn’t say that there aren’t any other gods: God says only that we shouldn’t have any other gods. There are options, that is, and by and large,…
Find out more »