COMMENTARY: What is a Retreat? Why is One Necessary?

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) “Where will you be going next week, Dad?” asks my son on our drive to school. “I will be in Pennsylvania, leading two retreats,” I reply. “What is a retreat?” Good question. Not simple to answer. For some a retreat is a time of silence and prayer. For some […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) “Where will you be going next week, Dad?” asks my son on our drive to school.

“I will be in Pennsylvania, leading two retreats,” I reply.


“What is a retreat?”

Good question. Not simple to answer. For some a retreat is a time of silence and prayer. For some a retreat is for learning, with a focus on teachings, writing and reading. Or it is a work time, focused on planning and problem-solving. Or team-building, with a focus on getting acquainted and airing issues.

“The main thing about a retreat,” I tell him, “is that it is a time away, a time apart.” I explain that a military retreat is a strategic withdrawal in the face of overwhelming force or an unsustainable position. Save the troops to fight another day. A spiritual retreat serves a similar purpose: withdraw temporarily from the overwhelming forces of the world, and gird yourself to re-enter the fray.

“Is that what the white flag is about?” he asks.

“No, the white flag is for surrendering,” or technically, to request a parley to discuss surrender.

Moses’ time on Mount Sinai explains why retreats are so necessary.

First, Moses didn’t go on retreat with an agenda, such as a set of issues to work on, a book to read, or some silence to attain. Moses went because God said, “Come up to me on the mountain.” God called this retreat, not Moses.

Second, Moses entrusted his normal duties to others. As it turned out, they violated his trust, which is a constant worry for retreatants. Even so, God required this time away.

Third, the mountain was a scary place, covered with a cloud. I suspect that every retreat starts in apprehension.

Fourth, the agenda belongs to God. Both retreat leader and retreatant need to know that. In Moses’ case, God left Moses alone in the cloud for six days _ as in the six days of creation _ before calling out to him on the seventh day.

Fifth, the retreat didn’t end when the glory moment occurred. No final round of hugs and head back to town. The seventh day was when the retreat moved deeper with a “devouring fire.”


Sixth, then came 40 days inside a cloud with God. During that time, God taught Moses how he and his people ought to live. As with the 40 days of the Flood, the liberated Hebrews’ 40 years in the wilderness and the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, this was a time of re-formation: new insights, new self-understanding, and a new trust in God.

Why is such arduous and time-consuming work necessary? Because the forces arrayed against us are truly overwhelming. They always are. Truth and lies are always at war. Justice and injustice, kindness and cruelty, sacrifice and greed, tolerance and intolerance, peace and strife _ always fighting, always competing for our loyalty, always threatening to corrupt our lives.

That’s why God calls people on retreat. It is why the faith community long ago set aside the 40 days of Lent for self-examination and repentance. If it were easier and less hazardous, then believers could play follow-the-leader, follow-the-rules, blame-the-enemy, and be done with it. Simple, quick, no pain, everybody goes home feeling good.

Not so. These are dangerous times, and we are each at risk. Rather than invest time in nurturing an informed, nuanced and durable faith, some seek instant conversion, bullet-point preaching, simple solutions and soothing cliches, while others grind away in endless controversy.

At the very time when a struggling nation needs us to promote the biblical values of freedom and justice, grounded in truth and self-sacrifice, we are bickering over sex, the golden calf of our era.

God needs us to retreat, to step into that frightening and time-consuming cloud, where we stop talking, stop planning, stop arming, stop building, and just listen to God.


(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

MO/RB END RNS

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