Creating Sabbath Space in Our Lives

Creating Sabbath Space in Our Lives

Ron Rolheiser, OMI

A Video Retreat Experience

Leader's Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 2-16

Participant Materials Session 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 17-22 Session 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 23-26 Session 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 27-31 Session 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 32-35 Session 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 36-39

Oblate Media and Communication Corp. |

Welcome Welcome to a unique experience. Creating Sabbath Space in Our Lives is a complete program that offers numerous possibilities for personal and spiritual enrichment, guided by one of the most sought-after retreat directors of our time.

Presented originally as a three-day event at King's House Retreat and Renewal Center, Belleville, IL, in July 2008, this retreat has been replicated as a ten-session video program that can be used for parish adult faith formation, small group faith sharing groups, or for private spiritual renewal.

As the program leader, you can determine the schedule and pace of the retreat experience to suit the particular needs of your community or group. The materials you will need to augment the video discs are included in this Leader's Guide, along with suggestions for group process that you can tailor to your needs.

Resources The Leader's Guide materials include

? A "Prepare" page for each of the ten sessions ? A "Prayer" service page for each of the five topics ? A "Reflection" vehicle for each of the five topics ? A "Notes on Screen" section that includes all the quotations that

appear on the screen during the presentations.

These materials are designed to be reproduced by you for your groups and individuals with whom you share this program.

The Prepare pages are meant to help the participants focus attention on their own lives as preparation for the sessions. The questions are usually personal, and responses are meant to be shared with the group on a volunteer basis. Prepare pages might be distributed to participants immediately before showing the video presentation, or at the conclusion of the previous presentation to allow for more time for reflection.

The Prayer service pages follow a set format that includes Scripture readings, reflection, petitions, and an invocation. It is suggested that, as the program continues, participants be encouraged to bring prayer resources to share with the group to begin or conclude the sessions.

The Reflection vehicles are meant as opportunities for the participants to review in their minds the contents of the presentations and apply them to their daily lives. They should be distributed following sessions 1B, 2B, 3B, 4B, and 5B, and shared with the group on a volunteer basis.

Guidelines for Discussion Groups This retreat program is best carried out in a relaxed and informal setting. The video screen should be set up so that it is visible to all, even though they may not be arranged in a "classroom" style space. The leader can set the tone by offering refreshments at the start of the session, and by making sure that everyone has had a chance to introduce him or herself.

If you plan to begin the first session with "Prepare 1A", allow for about fifteen to twenty minutes for participants to fill in the page, and then ask for any comments that they may wish to express. Mention that comments on these pages are strictly voluntary.

After you have shown the video portion of the session, ask volunteers to mention any particular parts of the presentation that were of interest to them. Ask participants to mention aspects of the presentation that struck a chord with them and aspects that they thought might not apply in their situation.

Ask for volunteers to read the Scripture passages for the Prayer service. You might want to do this early in the session to give the volunteers time to locate and read over the passages in their Bibles.

Reflection on the Scripture is a key aspect of the retreat program, and you should be prepared to direct this part of the session, since many participants may be hesitant to comment on Scripture. The purpose is to connect the overall point of the session with the application of the Scripture.

Keep in mind the following pointers for successful discussion group leadership.

? If you open the sharing with your own thoughts or experiences, you will model the kind of responses that the program encourages.

? Not everyone needs to share in every session. Some participants will need time to feel comfortable in the group.

? Make it clear that whatever is shared in the group is considered confidential.

? Periods of silence should not be uncomfortable. People need time to think.

? Begin and end on time. ? Ask that everyone have a chance to speak once, before anyone

speaks twice. ? Sharing should not be considered problem solving or advising

others. ? Hospitality is the order of the day.

Notes on Screen

Session 1A Sabbath AS the First Retreat

First Retreat: The Lonely Place

Second Retreat: The Desert

The Sabbath

Sabbath is meant to be un-ordinary time

Sabbath is meant to be celebration time

Sabbath is meant to be reconciliation time

"Sometimes you catch yourself doing what you should have been doing

all the time: just sitting in the sun and loving."

Session 1B Sabbath AS the First Retreat

"Nothing so much approximates the language of God as does silence." -Master Eckhart

"To allow one's self to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns; to surrender to too many demands; to commit one's self to too many projects; to want to help everyone and everything, is to succumb to violence. Life becomes a maelstrom in which speed and accomplishment, consumption and productivity have become the most valued human commodities. In this trance of over- work, we take everything for granted. We consume things, people, and information. We do not have time to savor this life, nor to deeply and gently care for ourselves, our loved ones, our world. Rather, with increasingly dizzying haste, we use them up and throw them away."

-Wayne Muller

"Sabbath honors the wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in spring. A period of rest in which nutrition and fertility most readily come together is not simply a human psychological convenience, it's a spiritual and a biological necessity. A lack of dormancy produces confusion and erosion in the life force. We, too, must have periods in which we lie fallow and restore our souls."

- Wayne Muller

"Sabbath need not be a year or even a day. Sabbath may also be a Sabbath afternoon; a Sabbath hour; a Sabbath walk. Sabbath is time off the wheel, when we take our hand from the plow and let God and the earth care for things while we drink, if only for a few minutes, from the fountain of rest and delight."

-Wayne Muller

"Everyday give yourself something that day to look forward to."

"Sabbath is more than the absence of work. it's not just the day off when we catch up on television or our errands. It's the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most beautiful, nurturing or true. It is time consecrated with our attention, our mindfulness, honoring the quiet forces of grace and spirit that sustain and heal us." -Wayne Muller

"Traditionally, Sabbath is honored by lighting candles; by gathering and

worship in prayer; by blessing children; by singing songs; by keeping

silence; by walking; reading Scripture; making love; sharing a meal.

Just as we wait until darkness falls before we can see the stars, so does

Sabbath quietly wait for us."

-Wayne Muller

"What I want to do is to leap out of this personality, and then to sit apart from that leaping. For I have lived too long where I can be reached."

-Rumi

"We are all going to end up with partial attention deficit disorder." -Thomas Friedman

"On Sabbatical we say, 'Today I am going to pamper my soul.'" -Wayne Muller

"If we forget to rest, we will work too hard and forget our more tender

mercies; forget those we love; forget our children and our natural wonder.

So God gave us a commandment to observe the Sabbath: remember to

rest. This is not a life-style suggestion, but a commandment, as important

as not stealing, not murdering, not lying."

-Wayne

Muller

"The commandment to remember to keep holy the Sabbath day is a loving reminder to take full advantage of a condition that already exists. At rest our souls are restored. This is the only commandment that begins with the word remember - as if it refers to something we have already forgotten."

-Wayne Muller

"Sabbath is a time when we retreat from the illusion of our own indispensability."

-Wayne Muller

Session 2A Obstacles to Sabbath

"If I had to live my life over again, I would make more mistakes the next time. And I would relax more. I would limber up, and I would be sillier than I was this time.

I know of few things I would take as seriously; although I would take more trips; I would climb more mountains; swim more rivers; watch more sunsets; and do more walking and more looking. And I would eat more ice cream and less beans. And I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I have been one of those people who have lived so sensibly and sanely and hurriedly, hour after hour, day after day. Now, I've had my moments, but if I had my life to live over again, I would try to have nothing else - just moments - one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I have been one of those people who never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, an aspirin and a parachute.

If I could live again, I would go to more places, do more things, but I would travel lighter. If I had my life to live again, I would start barefooted earlier in spring and stay that way later into the fall. I would play hooky from work more and I would ride more merry-go-rounds and I would pick more daisies."

- Brother Jeremiah

Obstacle To Sabbath:

Our Muddied, Wearied, Overtaxed Consciousness Narcissism, Pragmatism and Pathological Restlessness

"I think - therefore I am." -Rene Descartes

"Late have I loved thee: oh, beauty, ever ancient, ever new. I was outside of myself pursuing you. You were inside of me, but I wasn't inside of me.''

-Saint Augustine

NOTE: The Passage from Etty Hillesum appears as the Reflection for this session.

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