February 2002 Newsletter

CONTENTS:

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE
BOOK REVIEWS: FROM THE ASHES and THE SOLACE OF FIERCE LANDSCAPES
THOUGHTS FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. IN HONOR OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH
UPCOMING ARC RETREATS
ARRANGING RETREATS and RETREAT COSTS
RESPONSE FORM
ARC ANNOUNCES TWO SOJOURNS
RECIPE CORNER: FRENCH CANADIAN PEA SOUP
GIVE THE GIFT OF A RETREAT TO SOMEONE WHO REALLY NEEDS IT
TIME FOR A NEW ROOF!!
ANOUNCING . . . A SPECIAL SPRING 25TH ANNIVERSARY BENEFIT CONCERT
ARC NEEDS LIST




LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE
By Katherine Dutton, ARC Co-Director

In her incredible book, The Wall, Austrian author Marlen Haushofer writes about a woman who had gone to visit friends at a remote mountain hunting lodge. One day the friends set out on a walk to the closest village leaving the narrator of the story alone at the lodge. They never return. The woman goes in search of them and runs into a clear, impenetrable and insurmountable wall that stretches endlessly across the countryside. We never learn exactly how or why the wall came into existence but everything on the other side of it is dead. The woman guesses that it is some new super power technology dropped as a perverse experiment or act of war. Terrorism might be the word that comes to mind today.

At any rate, the woman finds herself living alone in a forest, needing to survive without any human contact. (Some days this may sound appealing!) In one passage she contrasts her hectic life in the city where she formerly lived to her current pace in the forest. She writes:

“In the city you can live in a nervous rush for years, and while it may ruin your nerves you can put up with it for a long time. But nobody can climb mountains, plant potatoes, chop wood and scythe [some of the things she needed to do in order to stay alive] in a nervous rush for more than a few months. The first year, when I still hadn’t adapted myself, had been well beyond my powers, and I shall never quite recover from those excessive labors. On top of that, I had been absurdly proud of each new record I broke. Today I even walk from the house to the stable in a leisurely woodlander’s stroll. My body stays relaxed, and my eyes have time to look around. A running person can’t look around.

In my previous life, my journey took me past a place where an old woman used to feed pigeons. I’ve always liked animals, and all my goodwill went out to those pigeons and yet I can’t describe a single one of them. I don’t even know what color their eyes and their beaks were. I simply don’t know, and I think that says enough about how I used to move through the city. It’s only since I’ve slowed down that the forest around me has come to life....

And so many things had to happen before I could find my way here. Before, I was always on my way somewhere, always in a great rush and furiously impatient; every time I got anywhere I would have to spend ages waiting. I might just as well have crept along. Sometimes I became quite clearly aware of my predicament, and of the demands of that world, but I wasn’t capable of breaking out of the stupid way of life.”

Much of this sounds so familiar. Aren’t we always on our way somewhere, often in a great rush and furiously impatient? Even as someone who lives in the woods I can’t tell you the last time I looked at the color of a bird’s beak or eyes. And wouldn’t it be just like many of us, in our task and goal oriented culture, to find ourselves in a forest (even on vacation) wanting to see how many miles we can hike or how much wood we can chop.

But at what cost? What do we miss?

People come to ARC on retreat to escape their hectic city lives, or at least expect that as a benefit of their journey to these woods. But many come with their bags of books, their work projects, their needlepoint or knitting, their group agendas, their new hiking boots to break in, etc. so that their retreat time also is about what they can get accomplished.

Not that any of that is bad-- they are all worthwhile things to be about. But for those who allow themselves, there is a mysterious allure of this place that negates those agendas. Many retreatants find that the first thing they are compelled to do here is take a nap (not by the staff but by some invisible force at work!). Another thing many guests take time for is to just be, to sit and look out the windows into the woods, or at the fire in the big stone fireplace, to come home to themselves.

At our annual ARC Board and Community Retreat this past January (at which there was very little nap-taking time, by the way!) we identified ARC’s core values. These are the primary things we want to be a part of ARC’s mission: providing hospitality, valuing silence and contemplation, listening to the Sacred, welcoming all people, building community, and serving nutritious, delicious food.

(Although there were other very important values mentioned to which we hope we also bear witness--such as compassion, justice, balanced living, good stewardship--as we tried to narrow the list to the core values no one was willing to give up delicious food!)

We also talked about how for many guests ARC is a sacred space and a safety zone-- a place where it’s okay to be who you are, where you can feel valued and nurtured, where you can find a refuge, where you can feel loved-- by a place, by other people, by a divine presence. Since September 11th the need for such places in our world seems more apparent than ever.

But at what cost? What do we miss?

People come to ARC on retreat to escape their hectic city lives, or at least expect that as a benefit of their journey to these woods. But many come with their bags of books, their work projects, their needlepoint or knitting, their group agendas, their new hiking boots to break in, etc. so that their retreat time also is about what they can get accomplished.

Not that any of that is bad-- they are all worthwhile things to be about. But for those who allow themselves, there is a mysterious allure of this place that negates those agendas. Many retreatants find that the first thing they are compelled to do here is take a nap (not by the staff but by some invisible force at work!). Another thing many guests take time for is to just be, to sit and look out the windows into the woods, or at the fire in the big stone fireplace, to come home to themselves.

At our annual ARC Board and Community Retreat this past January (at which there was very little nap-taking time, by the way!) we identified ARC’s core values. These are the primary things we want to be a part of ARC’s mission: providing hospitality, valuing silence and contemplation, listening to the Sacred, welcoming all people, building community, and serving nutritious, delicious food.

(Although there were other very important values mentioned to which we hope we also bear witness--such as compassion, justice, balanced living, good stewardship--as we tried to narrow the list to the core values no one was willing to give up delicious food!)

We also talked about how for many guests ARC is a sacred space and a safety zone-- a place where it’s okay to be who you are, where you can feel valued and nurtured, where you can find a refuge, where you can feel loved-- by a place, by other people, by a divine presence. Since September 11th the need for such places in our world seems more apparent than ever.

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BOOK REVIEWS: FROM THE ASHES and THE SOLACE OF PIERCE LANDSCAPES
By Dwayne Daehler, ARC Co-Director

I’ve chosen two books to review that relate to the events of last September 11. The first is titled From the Ashes: A Spiritual Response to the Attack on America; Experience, Strength, and Hope from Spiritual Leaders and Extraordinary Citizens collected by the editors of Beliefnet. It is a collection of writings and reflections by “knowns” and unknowns of Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist religious traditions and of various political stripes. Known writers include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Kathleen Norris, Billy Graham, Karen Armstrong, Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh to name but a few.

One feature I found most interesting: at the bottom of each page are quoted comments posted on the Beliefnet Internet Bulletin Board. It is a spontaneous and poignant outpouring of hope, horror, fear, and faith starting moments after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center and ending several days later. Chapter themes include “Where Was God,” “Evil and the Enemy,” “The Desire for Justice,” and “Fear and Vulnerability.” You will find poetry, homilies, letters, essays. Some writings will speak deeply to you; others might offend you. That is to be expected of a book of such diversity. But it is this diversity, along with the insight and wisdom therein, that makes this book worth reading and owning.

The second book, indirectly related to the September 11 attack, is Belden Lane’s, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. Lane writes, “The desert as metaphor is that uncharted terrain beyond the edges of the seemingly secure and structured world in which we take such confidence, a world of affluence and order we cannot imagine ever ending.” (p. 195) Is that not relevant to our post-September 11 experience?

Lane gives a powerful treatment of the spiritual journey into the desert, that emotional, spiritual, and theological topography where one discovers that “being good, being sweet, being nice will not cause life to sing.” In the desert, one discovers that vulnerability is a gift. Here one encounters a God not of the domesticated, house-broken kind often found in contemporary spirituality but “a God who cannot be had… [a God who] is a desert, ultimately beyond human comprehension.”

Lane writes with a style that is at times poetic, at times polemical. His insights and wisdom are rich and invite deep reflection. The book is scholarly, probing apophatic and kataphatic spiritualities and offering 40 pages of footnotes. Yet it is profoundly personal as he weaves throughout it his desert experience with his mother’s Alzheimer’s and cancer. There is healing in the desert, but it is a healing that passes through emptiness and death—the paradox of desert spirituality. His quote of Michael Ondaatje from The English Patient says it potently, “A man (sic) in the desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.” I cannot think of a better book to recommend for those whom September 11 thrust into deep spiritual reflection. My richest read in the past few years.

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THOUGHTS FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. IN HONOR OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH

“One of the tragedies of humanity’s long trek has been the limiting of neighborly concern to tribe, race, class or nation.... Our world is a neighborhood. We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will perish as fools.”

“I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of destruction....Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to dis-cover a way to live together in peace.... We must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

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UPCOMING ARC RETREATS

Blessedness in the Void: Desert Spirituality 7 pm Fri-Sun aft, Feb 8-10
The desert is a desolate place. We think of it as geographical, but it is also emotional and spiritua1—a space of loss, disorientation, dryness. The irony is that God offers many gifts in the desert. In this retreat we will consider the blessedness in the void. We will review desert influences in Jewish and Christian theology and reflect on our own desert experiences. A fitting retreat to prepare for Lent!
Led by Dwayne Daehler, spiritual director and desert sojourner Cost: $145

Nurturing Body and Soul: A Bread Baking Retreat 4 pm Sat-4 pm Sun, Feb 9-10
It’s soul-satisfying to mix, knead, and bake your own bread. Join us for a time of creative nurturance through baking, praying, reflecting, and walking in the snowy
woods. Registration is limited to the first six registrants--our kitchen is only so big! Bring an apron.
Led by Jerry Belanger, ARC community Cost (includes ingredients): $85

Due to the popularity of this retreat ( and that the Feb. one is almost full) ,
we’ve scheduled an additional date: 4 pm Sat-4 pm Sun, March 16-17.

Couples Retreat: Partnership--The Art of Faithfulness 7 pm Fri-Sun aft, Feb 15-17
This retreat for couples will explore what it means to be faithful to one another, to oneself, and to God. There will be time for each other, time with the gathered community, and time alone.
Led by Ruth and Loren Halvorson, ARC Founders Cost: $145


I Could Tell You Stories: A Book Retreat 9:30 am-4:30 pm, Sat, April 27
St. Paul author Patricia Hampl’s writing has been described as “searching, reverent, humorous and intent on knowing” in her memoir I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory. She says the injunction to remember is “the most impossible command we lay upon ourselves.“ It “claimed me and then perversely disappeared, trailing an illusive silken tissue of meaning,...refusing to leave me in peace.“ The retreat includes time for discussion, walking in the woods, a tasty homemade lunch, and a chance to be with others who share a love of reading.
Led by Katherine Dutton, ARC co-director Cost: $35

Creativity and the Spiritual Journey 7pm Fri-Sun aft, May 17-19
A retreat for artists (and those who would like to uncover their artistic talent!) focusing on the theme “Ezekiel as artist; you as artist.” Take a journey with this Old Testament character, see his visions and then begin seeing your own as you try a variety of painting and drawing techniques. The weekend will provide a time of thought, prayer, and activity, enabling participants to better discern their call as God-gifted visionary people. Supplies provided or bring your own.
Led by community member Mark Faris and Rev. Peter Rosenkvist, both professional artists. Cost: $145


Private Retreats

Individuals are always welcome at ARC for a time of personal retreat. This can be for any length of stay as space is available. Rooms are private. Guests may enjoy resting, reading, skiing, or sitting by the fireplace and looking out the huge A-frame window.

The hermitage, a single-person dwelling in the woods, lends itself to a more solitary retreat. Also called Poustinia, a Russian word which means ‘desert space,’ the hermitage is a bright, lofty room with a kitchenette and screened-in porch. The setting is ideal for those desiring more solitude. It is a place where one may enter into the emptiness of isolation and silence to be encountered by God.

The cottage is our newest space, a cozy but luxurious cabin available to individuals, couples, or small groups. It has a full kitchen, bedroom, bath, loft, and a living room with a gas fireplace and an A-frame window wall.
Call to make arrangements.

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ARRANGING RETREATS and RETREAT COSTS
To arrange a group or private retreat, call (763)689-3540.
Office hours: 9 am to 5 pm
e-mail: arcretreat@hotmail.com
Web-site: www.arcretreat.org
Costs:
24-Hr Retreat (Sun-Thurs)...........................................$65
24-Hr Retreat (Fri/Sat).................................................$70
Weekend Retreat (Fri eve-Sun aft).............................$135
Day Retreat (9-4)................$20 Weekdays, $25 Weekends
ARC-Led Weekend....................................................$145
Hermitage (24 hrs)..............$65 Weekdays, $70 Weekends
Cottage..........................................................Call for rates
Rates are slightly higher for profit-making organizations.

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RESPONSE FORM
Mail to: ARC Retreat Center, 1680-373rd Ave. NE, Stanchfield, MN 55080
Phone: 763-689-3540

Name(s): ______________________________________________ Phone: (____) _____________

Street Address: __________________________________________________________________

City: ___________________________________ State: __________ Zip: ___________________

Special Needs (diet, accessibility, etc.): _______________________________________________

Please Check Appropriate Items:
___ I am registering for the following retreat(s):
_______________________________________ __________________ ___________________
Retreat Title Retreat Date Deposit Enclosed
($35 per person per night, nonrefundable)
___ I am contributing to the ARC retreat ministry with a gift of $______.
___ I am contributing a retreat to someone who really needs it (see p.3) with a gift of $______ .
___ I am moving. My new address is above. (All gifts are tax deductible.)
___ I would like to volunteer on a weekend ___ or weekday ____. Please call me.

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ARC ANNOUNCES TWO SOJOURNS

A Desert Sojourn, June 22-30, 2002
From the ancient Hebrews to certain prophets to Jesus to the desert abbas and immas, the desert was a place of spiritual formation. This will be a sojourn to
the Midwest’s own desert-- the Badlands of South Dakota. There will be daily presentations and group conversations on the spirituality of the desert. Daily worship will be based on the theme. There will be plenty of time for individual reflection. We will travel by van and camp in the national park. Cost is $550/person and includes 2 overnights at ARC, travel, meals, and camping costs. Led by Dwayne Daehler, spiritual director and desert sojourner.

Pilgrimage to Switzerland, October 4-18, 2002
Rescheduled from 2001, this pilgrimage will include visits to Geneva (home of the World Council of Churches, the International Red Cross, and other interna-
tional bodies) to Grandchamp Community in Switzerland where Ruth was inspired to begin ARC Retreat Center, to Sonnenhoff Community near Basel, and to Wengen—a picturesque Swiss village at the base of the Jungfraujoch Mountain closed to cars and busses. Cost is $2499/person. Led by Ruth and Loren Halvorson, ARC founders.

Phone, write, or e-mail ARC for full information about both of these sojourns.

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RECIPE CORNER: FRENCH CANADIAN PEA SOUP
Ingredients:
yellow whole peas, dried 6 cups
vegetable stock or water 12 cups
potatoes, coarsely chopped 5 cups
carrots, coarsely chopped 1 1/2 cups
celery, coarsely chopped 3 cups
onions, coarsely chopped 4 cups

marjoram, dried 1 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp.
thyme, dried 1 tsp. black pepper, to taste
savory, dried 2 tsp.

Procedure:
1. Rinse the peas. Bring peas and stock or water to a boil.
2. Add vegetables, reduce heat, simmer for 45-60 min. or until
the peas are very soft and almost disintegrating.
(you may want to use a heat diffuser to prevent scorching.)
3. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor until it is quite smooth. It will be very thick.
4. Add the herbs, salt and pepper and reheat gently. Makes 14 6 oz. servings.

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GIVE THE GIFT OF A RETREAT TO SOMEONE WHO REALLY NEEDS IT

A recurring concern of the ARC Board and Community is how to make retreating accessible to people who may not be able to afford it. We have always offered scholarship assistance upon request but our funds have been limited and, perhaps, have not reached the people most in need.

Consequently, we are beginning a new program called A Gifted Retreat. We invite you to send ARC a donation to cover the cost of one or more 24 hour weekday retreats ($65). We will in turn pass a gift certificate on to people who could identify someone who would most benefit by it. For example, we might give the certificate to a pastor, therapist, group leader, or to an organization such as the Center for Victims of Torture, Minnesota Aids Project or Chrysalis Center for Women and they would then give it to a single parent, struggling client, recent immigrant, battered woman, and so on.

Feel free to let us know if you’d like your gift to go to a specific church or organization. You may use the response form on p. 5 of this newsletter. Know that your gift will be greatly appreciated by the recipient.

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TIME FOR A NEW ROOF!!
Faced with the need to provide a new roof for ARC this coming summer, we are in the preliminary stages of planning a working retreat experience similar to the work camps which did the initial building construction 25 years ago. The retreat will most likely cover two weekends and the intervening week in August. Our hope is that Emeritus Professor of Maintenance Loren Halvorson will be able to serve as retreat leader. Watch for more details in our next newsletter or call Dave at ARC.



ANNOUNCING . . . A SPECIAL SPRING 25TH ANNIVERSARY BENEFIT CONCERT

featuring singer-songwriter Jeanne Cotter

Jeanne Cotter is a renowned musician who with her husband, Matthew Moore, runs an independent recording and publishing company, Mythic Rain. Jeanne has recorded several CDs and authored a book entitled Child of the Moon. Jeanne offers summer retreats at ARC for vocalists, composers, and keyboard players. (If you’re interested in the retreats visit the website: www.mythicrain.com.)

The date, time and place will be posted on our website as soon as we know-- www.arcretreat.org. Or watch for a separate invitation in the mail.

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ARC NEEDS LIST

Window air conditioners
humidifiers/dehumidifiers
cat and dog food
suet
firewood
colored copier paper
lamps and end tables
couches and chairs
flashlights
brooms
folding chairs
cordless electric drill
jumper cables
polaroid camera

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