Listening for the Sacred: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart

Listening for the Sacred: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart

This gathering on Saturday 30 August is for anyone who senses that we are living through an era of profound reckoning, and who longs to meet it with courage, clarity, and compassion.

During this retreat morning, we invite you to listen for the sacred—to the “more-than,” the larger whole to which we are connected. To the silence beneath the noise. To the voice of your inner teacher.

To the presence and wisdom that whispers beneath grief, denial, optimism, and urgency.

We’ll begin with a simple gratitude meditation, honouring all that sustains us. Then, through poetry and sacred text, we’ll open space for deeper listening. We’ll take our questions into an embodied practice —building and walking a beach labyrinth at low tide. No experience of meditation or labyrinths is needed. Afterwards, we’ll gather for a shared breakfast in the church hall, followed by a time for individual reflection in small groups using Circle of Trust® touchstones—principles that help create trustworthy, gracious space for honest exploration.

This morning stands on its own, but it also serves as a taster for an ongoing Circle of Trust group running through autumn and winter. The stimulus for the longer journey will be

We live in troubled times. And still, we work, smile, shop, cook, tend to our gardens and friendships. But when we pause—really pause—we often sense something deeper stirring beneath the surface. A knowing that all is not well. A quiet ache, a low hum of grief, a feeling that we are not only witnesses but participants in a great unravelling. In those still moments, we may feel a subtle dread, a shared knowing among those who are awake to the fragility of our time. A grief not easily named, carried quietly by many.

This morning stands on its own, but it also serves as a taster for an ongoing Circle of Trust group running through autumn and winter. The stimulus for the longer journey will be Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart by Brian McLaren. We’ll share more at the close of the morning, and there will be space for questions about this ongoing group. If you wish, you’re invited to read the Introduction and Chapter One in advance of the retreat —available here, for free. To help us plan for catering needs, please email info@centreforspirituality.org if you plan to participate. Donation of £5-£10 welcome to cover venue hire and breakfast.

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet