NOVA Goes on Retreat...
UPCOMING NOVA RETREAT
CREATION SPIRITUALITY: OUR DEEP CONNECTION TO THE SACREDNESS OF LIFE
September 10-12, 2021 – Bon Secours Retreat Center
While we are immersed in western culture, it is too easy to frame our lives around thinking, doing, imagining, or creating. Considering the awesome life that teems on this planet, this vessel is much too small. Creation Spirituality offers a reframing of our lives through the lifting-up of all creation as part of our culture and all life forms are held as sacred.
The work of Matthew Fox, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, and many other mystics is based upon their experiences of the sacredness of life. Starting with the first creative outburst of the universe to this very moment in which you are reading this message and all the growth and exchanges yet to come, we live in a universe held together by a holy life force and infused with divine love.
During this retreat we will explore the nature of that sacred love and how it might give us a broader and more supportive context for advocating love-justice, for healing the earth, for affirming diversity, and for living our lives free from the arbitrary demands of a short-term culture.
We will meet in large and small groups. We will immerse ourselves in nature and listen to Matthew Fox via videos. We will discuss, and we will dance in circles. We will celebrate a Cosmic Ritual based on the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality and a Sunday Liturgy centered on the sacrament of earth and the sacredness of our lives. Details to come.
To learn more about Matthew Fox and Creation Spirituality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKXd7qiLBdI&t=1240s
For inspiration on the sacredness of Earth, click on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnpFeqc7Muc&t=2771s
To subscribe to the (online) Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox:
https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/
Our Retreat Leader Rev. Gail Sofia Ransom, D.Min. Is a singer, writer, earth activist and community organizer. She received her Doctor of Ministry in Creation Spirituality in 2010. While she was studying, Gail brought her insights back to First United Methodist Church of Pittsburgh, where she was education director and oversaw community outreach. There she co-created a weekly Creation Spirituality gathering based on the flow of a Cosmic Mass. Gail has hosted three major Creation Spirituality events with Matthew Fox in Pittsburgh and Asheville and has helped lead 5 major Cosmic Masses. Upon completing four years as President of Creation Spirituality Communities, Gail became the comments editor for Fox’s daily online meditations. Gail now lives and writes in Boston.
CREATION SPIRITUALITY: OUR DEEP CONNECTION TO THE SACREDNESS OF LIFE
September 10-12, 2021 – Bon Secours Retreat Center
While we are immersed in western culture, it is too easy to frame our lives around thinking, doing, imagining, or creating. Considering the awesome life that teems on this planet, this vessel is much too small. Creation Spirituality offers a reframing of our lives through the lifting-up of all creation as part of our culture and all life forms are held as sacred.
The work of Matthew Fox, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, and many other mystics is based upon their experiences of the sacredness of life. Starting with the first creative outburst of the universe to this very moment in which you are reading this message and all the growth and exchanges yet to come, we live in a universe held together by a holy life force and infused with divine love.
During this retreat we will explore the nature of that sacred love and how it might give us a broader and more supportive context for advocating love-justice, for healing the earth, for affirming diversity, and for living our lives free from the arbitrary demands of a short-term culture.
We will meet in large and small groups. We will immerse ourselves in nature and listen to Matthew Fox via videos. We will discuss, and we will dance in circles. We will celebrate a Cosmic Ritual based on the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality and a Sunday Liturgy centered on the sacrament of earth and the sacredness of our lives. Details to come.
To learn more about Matthew Fox and Creation Spirituality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKXd7qiLBdI&t=1240s
For inspiration on the sacredness of Earth, click on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnpFeqc7Muc&t=2771s
To subscribe to the (online) Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox:
https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/
Our Retreat Leader Rev. Gail Sofia Ransom, D.Min. Is a singer, writer, earth activist and community organizer. She received her Doctor of Ministry in Creation Spirituality in 2010. While she was studying, Gail brought her insights back to First United Methodist Church of Pittsburgh, where she was education director and oversaw community outreach. There she co-created a weekly Creation Spirituality gathering based on the flow of a Cosmic Mass. Gail has hosted three major Creation Spirituality events with Matthew Fox in Pittsburgh and Asheville and has helped lead 5 major Cosmic Masses. Upon completing four years as President of Creation Spirituality Communities, Gail became the comments editor for Fox’s daily online meditations. Gail now lives and writes in Boston.
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Each year, the Community takes a week-end away to deepen our faith, strengthen our bonds, play, pray and learn together. Our retreat home is Shrine Mont, a beautiful, restful spiritual refuge tucked into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The retreat is planned by community members and can include outside leaders as well as NOVA facilitators. Themes have included: Conflict resolution and peace-building; Music and Soul-making; “Into the Woods” – facing our fears and doubts. To view photos from the previous retreats, click on the NOVA Photos page. |
Until 2019. NOVA Retreats were held at the Shrine Mont Retreat Center in Virginia. This is a photo of the lake and buildings there.
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