Why does one make a spiritual retreat?
Webster’s defines “retreat” as “a period of retirement or seclusion, especially one devoted to religious contemplation away from the pressures of ordinary life”. “Spiritual” references “the higher intellectual or endowments of the mind, intellect, consciousness or the moral feelings or states of the soul”. Making a ‘spiritual retreat’ then is choosing a place of quietude, perhaps with a teacher or spiritual guide, to rediscover the divinity that exists at the center of our lives. In his book A Place for God, author, Timothy K. Jones suggests a retreat so we may “recollect a scattered life and focus on the one who calls and seeks and invites us to communion.” Why do we enter into Silence? Silence renews us and provides a perspective that subtlety changes our relationship with the life we know. Timothy Jones, author of numerous spiritual books states that “the solitude of a retreat will provide an interval of stillness and gentle concentration, a pause in the constant and unremitting dem
