1680 - 373rd Avenue NE, Stanchfield, MN 55080     763-689-3540    arcretreat@hotmail.com
  (Located 8 Miles Northwest of Cambridge, MN)                

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Hospitality offers a place where change can take place

by Jan Wiersma, Director

When I arrived nearly five years ago, nest was an image that held ARC’s truth for me. A nest is a small and intimate home, a sanctuary, a place where life comes into being, where nature can take its slow and confident course shielded from danger and distraction. And so it is here. We like to quote Henry Nouwen, “Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is meant not to change people, but to offer them a space where change can take place.”

That transformation does occur when people experience time and space apart is beyond doubt; or else why would so many people be drawn to retreat at all, and then drawn back year after year, as if following some deep migratory or homing impulse? People come for reasons as varied as the birds of the woods. We do not always ask, but people often volunteer: they come to rest, to write, to grieve, to find clarity in decision-making, or to ponder a major life change. Often it is not until after the retreat is over that the transformation becomes apparent in a new assurance, acceptance, peace or life path.

Something very similar occurs during prayer, as I have come to know it here. In recent years, ARC’s twice-daily gathering in the chapel has gravitated toward silence, the most inclusive of worship. Cynthia Bourgeault, who practices and teaches the form of meditation known as Centering Prayer, speaks of the value of non-verbal prayer, where thoughts and feelings are stilled. It is, she says, “not about piety, but about the rewiring of the brain…. Meditation changes how we think and perceive reality.” When I sink into silence in the company of others, the quality of my prayer changes. I relinquish myself to the Spirit in a deeper way and let God re-arrange what’s  inside. “Relax, open, yield, soften. Let go,” Bourgeault counsels. Change will occur.

Change, says a friend, is loss. Perhaps; but it is also gain. Each ending is also a beginning. Every time I unclench the fist of my heart, God slips an unexpected gift through the  cracks. Every time I quiet the inner hammering of my thoughts, love and quiet confidence enter my soul. This is welcome change, world-bending change.

In my years at ARC, I’ve learned a lot about change, and little bit about birds and their nests, too. Birds don’t live in nests, really. They use them briefly, as the eggs are laid and incubated, as the young are hatched and fed, and fledge. Once the babies try their wings, they belong to the air, the trees, the grasses. Nests are necessary for warmth and protection until the time has come to leave, to move on to the next phase of growth.

And so the time has come for me to move on, as well, to leave this ARC nest of safety and security, of challenge and growth, to answer another call. Others will be departing, too: Bob, Nicole, Melody, and our faithful volunteer coordinator Heidi Wagner. I see these leave-takings as more gain than loss: How much we have all learned from our time together; how much of ourselves we will leave behind! And we open space for others to come after us, to stay for a time, to rest and risk themselves for a greater good. The mission of ARC endures. ARC will be here: a space where strangers can enter and become friends, a nest where transformation is as natural as breathing.

If you are interested in hermitage or small group retreats, be sure to visit
The Dwelling in the Woods, another "sanctuary in time."