Living Differently

The resources on this page were added each week for 15 weeks from March to June 2020, as we made our way slowly and thoughtfully through unfolding times of living differently, and we will leave them here for your use for as long as seems good. Go well.

Bringing Retreat House home

For those who are missing coming along to our little rooms in Abbey Square, this slideshow might help. Maybe you can hold the gifts of Retreat House, and those you have met there, in your heart as you watch. If you’ve never visited us in this place, here’s a way to find some of the loveliness it offers. added Week 1

The images will move on at about ten-second intervals, for about four and a half minutes.

A Peace Day wherever you are

Our monthly Peace Days give a regular rhythm to our activities at Retreat House Chester, grounding us in Peace and the wholeness it means. We offer here a way for you to make your own Peace Day at home or wherever you are, in the hope that it does indeed bring you some peace, some ground, some wholeness in these times. Click here for the resource, which you can print out or use online. added Week 1

Helping us to meditate

Many of our activities at Retreat House Chester are grounded in silence and simplicity. Usually, twice a month we offer meditation sessions drawing on the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM). If you would like to find out a little more about what can help us to meditate, click here for our simple resource, which also provides some links to resources from WCCM. If you would like to join your own time of quiet prayer with others while apart, through Retreat House Chester, we suggest the usual times of our meditation sessions: Tuesday afternoons any time 2 - 4pm, and Wednesday evenings, any time 7-9pm. Just take your own time and know that others might be doing the same. added Week 2

Fruitful times

Someone has sent us a contemplative colouring of the apple tree image we use on much of our material. The original inspiration for this image was the apple tree growing in the garden of the old retreat house in Abbey Square. A tree can be a sign to us of continuity, reliability and hope. If you’d like to colour your own, you can find it here to print out. As you do so, you may like to have in mind the words of the Psalmist for yourself or others: ‘Keep me as the apple of your eye; beneath the shadow of your wings protect me’ (Psalm 17). A useful ‘apple’ resource to help with anxiety or uncertainty in these times is here on the council Live Well Cheshire West website. added Week 2

Conversation Pieces

One of our most popular activities in our usual programme is our ‘Conversations’ - gatherings over a series of weeks to reflect alone and together on living and spirituality. Now and again, on this page, we’ll be offering ‘Conversation Pieces’ contributed by some of the folk who have been part of recent conversation groups at RHC. After this first fortnight of national ‘stay-at-home’, reflections are offered on the invitation to ‘Find a time of stillness and silence’ - an invitation RHC makes at all times - now that we find ourselves living differently. They can be used just for yourself, or as a way of inspiring conversation with someone you can speak with. Read them here. added Week 3

Noticing Hope

Mindful of the past and the future, we live in the now. Noticing what’s around us can help us with that focus on the present moment, and even to discover peace there. Our Reflective Chester project finds ways of noticing what’s good for the soul in the common ground of our city. In these times, wherever you are, give yourself a rhythm of seven hours or seven days to notice each of the colours of the rainbow in turn - that great symbol of hope and promise - finding hope and promise as you go, wherever you are. Go slowly, with a rhythm of just one colour at a time… And, if possible, be glad of what you find. added Week 4

This is an activity that can be easily adapted for children. Our images are from our archive of photos from Chester: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet - and our community mosaic.

Creative workshop

From time to time at RHC we enjoy craft and creativity as a way of retreat. One of our recent activities was origami: patient, absorbing, repetitive, and ending with something lovely made simply from paper. For many, these extraordinary times are telling us to live more simply. We’ve just heard from a friend who has been making origami butterflies at Easter, as symbols of hope and life after the cocoon of isolation. You can find out how to make butterflies and other origami projects on the Cambridge Imprint website here where we find some of the lovely paper we use in our workshops. A very short film on the monastic tradition of using our hands can be found here (‘How to… use time: manual labour’) on the new website AloneTogether introduced by Fr Christopher Jamison: many will remember him visiting us here in Chester. Enjoy. added Week 4

Conversation Pieces 2

In Week 3 we offered our first ‘Conversation Pieces’, a series of reflections on the invitations usually made by RHC, and considering how these might be helpful for how we live now. This time, it’s ‘Experience different ways to develop our reflective nature’. They can be used to read just by yourself or to share with another to inspire your own conversation beyond the news stories. Read them here. added Week 5

A bigger picture

At RHC we value being a small part of a bigger picture. We are inspired by the retreat and spirituality work of others - in our own times, across the world, and throughout time. We also seek to offer rich resources, and are looking forward to opening again and launching our new library. In the meantime, you can find just some of this inspiration and resources for living now by following any of the introductory links below (to external websites) - and then explore. added Week 5

Ignatian Spirituality from the Jesuits at Pathways to God here, with plenty more links from that website
from a Benedictine monastery (Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire) here, and the monastic-inspired new website for these times ‘AloneTogether’ here
meditation from the World Community for Christian Meditation here
creative resources with a Celtic flavour from Lindisfarne Scriptorium here, and Wild Goose (the Iona Community) here

Soulful Saturdays

Soulful Saturdays are our weekend retreat days exploring themes from the riches of Christian spirituality, usually with a guest retreat leader – so this resource offers a chance to listen to the kind of talk we might hear on one of these Saturdays. Mystery... meaning... love... evolving... fullness of life: if these are words you associate with spirituality, you may enjoy Margeret Silf’s talk given at St Paul’s Cathedral and on YouTube here. Margaret is one of the UK’s best-known and best-loved retreat leaders and we were so glad to welcome her to lead our first ever public event ‘Sacred in the city’ back in April 2016. So, for the wisdom of the talk and to celebrate the fourth birthday of our first launch event, you could do worse than spend an hour listening to this. (There are many other talks from thoughtful speakers on the St Paul’s website video pages.) added Week 6

Year of Pilgrimage

Our rooms in Abbey Square are nestled between the Cathedral and the Town Square, on the site of the old monastery courtyard where the monks drew water from the well, baked their bread and brewed their beer. Some of our events take place in the beautiful centuries-old surroundings of the Cathedral building, and many who come on our retreats also spend time in the Cathedral and its grounds. So we are glad to share their newly-published book of reflections ‘Walking with God’, celebrating the Year of Pilgrimage: just go to the Cathedral website here and then follow the link . added Week 6

Reflective Chester

Although we have been running our ‘Reflective Chester’ project for a while now, working across the community on ways of noticing what’s ‘good for the soul’ in our everyday surroundings, our website page for this is new. Take a look here. Each month we’ll be posting a new reflective slideshow on that page, inspired by what people are telling us and maybe helping us to notice too - and we think it’s a lovely and worthwhile way to spend five minutes. added week 7

Conversation Pieces 3

In Week 3 and Week 5, we offered ‘Conversation Pieces’ 1 and 2, a series of reflections on the invitations usually made by RHC, and considering how these might be helpful for how we live now. This week, it’s the invitation to ‘Explore spirituality - in a Christian context’. Our explorations are rooted in Christian understanding but don’t need a particular faith, and our belief is that there is always more to explore, whoever we are. You can read, download and print the reflections here. added Week 8

Reflective Walking

From time to time we offer a walk on our programme. On these walks, we try to make our way reflectively - noticing our surroundings, pausing now and again for a reading or suggestion, keeping a rhythm to our walk, and with times of silence and times of conversation. Shown here you can find images from one of our routes - an amble from Grosvenor Park, across the Dee and through the Meadows - and just a flavour of reflection. Perhaps you’ll make this walk from your chair at home, perhaps you’ll do it ‘for real’, or perhaps you’ll use some of these ways to take notice as you make your way on another path. Go well. added Week 9

The images will move on at about ten-second intervals, for about five minutes. Our logo marks the beginning and close of the walk. We include the names of poems we shared along the way.

"The treasure we seek is hidden in the ground on which we stand." Henri Nouwen

our beginning: looking across and wondering how we will go

Grosvenor Park

taking notice: looking up, looking ahead, looking back, looking down

down to the river

by the water

up on the bridge

engaging our senses - poetry ‘Look and See’ Mary Oliver

noticing this moment

on the other side

catching a glimpse - another perspective

entering new space - through the gate

wide open space - a different quality of sound, of air - poetry ‘The Peace of Wild Things’ Wendell Berry

ambling into the Meadows

meandering, not a straight line

wander and wonder

finding meaning in what we see

arriving at the river - poetry ‘Ducks Ditty’ Kenneth Grahame - simple enjoyment

on the path now, walking against the flow, towards the source

poetry ‘The Summers Day’ Mary Oliver

catching a glimpse - a pause

time to return, along the path

walking rhythmically back, shoulders back and breathing deeply, with the flow of the river

noticing how the riverbank and water meet

where we have been - poetry ‘The Bright Field’ RS Thomas - with gratitude

out through the gate

the view ahead

back to the bridge, noticing a difference

tea by the Dee, and our close

Fullness of Life

For Retreat House Chester, ‘peace’ means ‘wholeness’ - or fullness of life. Peace recognises that our lives are a whole, rather than lived in segments, and that peace can be found in integrating the different aspects of our living. For many, this includes our working lives. In the light of the current pandemic, we asked one of our volunteers, with a background in nursing and palliative care and now working in spiritual accompaniment and pastoral settings, to share something with us of her experience from her work. You can read her tender and thoughtful response here. added Week 10

Words workshop

As well as our creative craft and art workshops, from time to time we enjoy being creative with words. We’re glad to be led and encouraged in these by local poet and writer Julia McGuinness, who is now Poet in Residence at Chester Cathedral, and whose own website is here. You can read by clicking here a poem written from one workshop, based on a walk in the city - brightly and reflectively evocative of an experience of Chester - and we are thankful to the poet for being able to share it here. Writers are generous folk, and you can read here of our Retreat House Poets. Time to get writing, maybe. added Week 11

Reflective Chester

Our slideshow ‘Reflective Chester in June’ is now on our Reflective Chester page here. Five mindful minutes: good for the soul. added Week 11

Conversation Pieces 4

Through these weeks we’ve been offering a series of reflections on the invitations usually made by RHC, and considering how these might be helpful for how we live now. Our final invitation in this Conversation series is to ‘Connect - with your daily life, and with one another’, and we consider what connection has meant during lockdown and what it might mean as we start to consider life ahead. You can read, download and print the reflections here. added Week 12

Fullness of Life 2

For Retreat House Chester, ‘peace’ means ‘wholeness’ - or fullness of life. Peace recognises that our lives are a whole, rather than lived in segments, and that peace can be found in integrating the different aspects of our living. For many, this includes our working lives. In Week 10 we offered a reflective piece drawn from experience working in palliative care; this week we asked one of our regulars to share something of his experience of working in Mental Health - and specifically dementia care - during this pandemic crisis. You can read his response here. added Week 13

A Short Retreat

Back at the start of lockdown, we offered on this page ‘A Peace Day wherever you are’. Our Peace Days provide a gentle shape and focus to the natural rhythm of a day. Our Short Retreats offer a similar shape, but with more material and a specific theme. Through the days of lockdown, ‘home’ has been a theme for us all: what home means and how we share the common home of this world. Here, then, as we find ourselves emerging and with things to discover from this experience, we offer a Short Retreat with ‘home’ as its theme. added Week 14

Peace

At the heart of Retreat House Chester is Peace, and our work and values centre on peace and the wholeness it means. This desire for Peace is what we carry with us - for all of us - as we enter the next stage of these remarkable times. In our final resource before offering new ways for new times, you can read contributions on Peace from amongst the RHC community here. As ever, our grateful thanks to those who have contributed. added Week 15

THANK YOU FOR SPENDING TIME WITH US.

Staying in touch

These resources have been added week by week for 15 weeks from March to June, but remember you can stay in touch on Facebook @retreathousechester and @ReflectiveChester. See you there…

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In offering these resources, we are very thankful for emergency funding from the Steve Morgan Foundation and Cheshire West & Chester Council.

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