SPIRITUAL PRACTICES FOR RENEWAL
with MARCELLE MARTIN and PHILIP MAURER
APRIL 15-17, 2022
in partnership with New England Yearly Meeting
During this weekend retreat, we will experiment with a variety of approaches to prayer and meditation, including thanksgiving, intercession, healing prayer, mindfulness meditation, Centering Prayer, Grand Silence, meeting for worship, and prayer with images, music, and the body. We will also contemplate the meanings scripture stories may have for our own lives. We’ll consider stories of the desolation of Good Friday and the Easter morning conversation between Mary Magdalene and Jesus outside the empty tomb. How do we live with our own disappointed expectations? How do we find new hope? We will explore the healing that comes from joining in heart-felt prayer, contemplation, and worship with others.
There will be many opportunities to share our experiences with partners and in small groups. No particular beliefs are required, only a willingness to earnestly try different kinds of prayer and meditation, notice what we experience, and listen respectfully to the experiences shared by others.
This workshop is also a chance to experience a taste of the Nurturing Faithfulness nine-month course to be offered in collaboration with New England Yearly Meeting and Beacon Hill Friends House September 2022-May 2023.
NOTE: All guests visiting Woolman Hill are asked to follow Woolman Hill’s COVID-19 protocols. Additional for this event: leaders of this program request full vaccination for participation.
FACILITATORS
Marcelle Martin is the author of Our 
Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey (Inner Light Books, 2016) and a member of Swarthmore Monthly Meeting (PA). She has led workshops at retreat centers and Quaker meetings across the United States, with a call to help nurture the spiritual vitality and radical faithfulness of Friends and Quakerism today. She was the resident Quaker Studies teacher at Pendle Hill for four years, and was a core teacher in the School of the Spirit program, The Way of Ministry. She is the author of the Pendle Hill pamphlets Invitation to a Deeper Communion and Holding One Another in the Light. In 2013 she was the Mullen Writing Fellow at Earlham School of Religion while working on her book. On her blog, A Whole Heart, she writes about spirituality today, taking inspiration from the past to help us find the courage to become all God has created us to be in our day. Visit her website at awholeheart.com.
Philip Maurer is a poet and writer who works on assignment for The Christian Century. He is the founder of New Name Media, which will release its first poetry chapbook this June. Raised Lutheran, he is now a member of Northampton (MA) Friends Meeting, which has care of his ministry.
REGISTRATION AND LOGISTICS
See below for more information about registration, cost, meals, accommodations, and other logistics.
Or you can proceed directly to REGISTER HERE
COST & REGISTRATION
The standard rate for this retreat is $275, with a sliding scale of $175-350. The fee includes program, lodging and food from Friday dinner through Sunday lunch. Commuter rate is $175. Please pay what fits in your personal budget, encourage your faith community to financially support your participation if that is appropriate, and please ask if you need additional scholarship funds. A non-refundable deposit of $50 is required to hold a space for a program. If you need to cancel, the deposit can be applied to a future workshop.
ARRIVAL & DEPARTURE
Plan to arrive after 4:30pm Friday evening, in time for dinner at 6:30. The workshop will end by 2pm on Sunday. We are centrally located in western Massachusetts, close to both I-91 and Route 2. For those arriving by car, we will send directions prior to the event. Please let us know if you’d be interested in car-pooling. The nearest Amtrak train station is in Greenfield (MA). Vermont Transit and Peter Pan bus lines also stop in Greenfield. Please contact us in advance to see if we can arrange a ride from these stations.
ROOM & BOARD
Our 19th-century farmhouse has hand-hewn beams and wide pine floors, with simple shared-room lodging. The meetinghouse and the first floor of the main building are wheelchair accessible. Our rustic cabins have electricity, woodstoves and outhouses. We serve nourishing, home-cooked meals and always offer vegetarian options. Please let us know if you have any dietary restrictions. Part of the community building at each retreat includes the joyful sharing of meal chores and final clean-up.
WHAT TO BRING
Please bring your own toiletries, towels, and bedding (sleeping bag or sheets and blankets or comforter). Pillows are provided. Be sure to bring seasonally appropriate clothes and comfortable indoor and outdoor footwear. You might also like to bring a flashlight, journal, musical instrument…
Please do NOT bring pets or candles.
We have limited internet access and cell phone reception. We encourage guests to consider how cell phone or computer use may detract from their experience of being fully present, here and now.
COVID PROTOCOLS
You can read Woolman Hill’s general Covid guidelines here. NOTE THAT FOR THIS PROGRAM the leaders have requested that all participants are fully vaccinated. Please contact us if you have questions.
We look forward to welcoming you to the hill!
Click here to REGISTER ON-LINE for this program.