Reflecting on 2022 and my experience working for Retreat House Chester

As we all welcome in and pray for a peaceful and prosperous 2023, I wanted to reflect on my personal experience of taking on the role of Administrator at Retreat House Chester. It is now approximately six months since initially accepting the position, and my overwhelming feeling ever since has been one of gratitude and enthusiasm. For those of us who graduated in late 2019, our tentative journey into starting a career was characterized by disruption, tumult, and often downright despair, as we were compelled to navigate an unprecedented series of economic and health challenges posed by Covid-19. At the same time as when so many of us were dealing with loss and grief, we were also faced with the demoralizing prospect of job losses, as well as seeking re-employment in a market that for 18 months seemed to endlessly oscillate between various states of hibernation. For myself personally, receiving medical advice to ‘shield’ for most of 2020 made matters even more difficult, limiting any job searches to ‘work from home’.

By 2022, after two years of working for the University of Chester’s Department of Social and Political Science as a Learning Facilitator, the realization that my true passion lay in the local charitable sector continued to grow. I first heard about Retreat House Chester through my role as a Centre Assistant at St Mary’s Handbridge Centre, when Clare contacted the Parish Office about using one of our spaces for a volunteers’ meeting. Interested in what this small but ambitious charity had to offer, I conducted my own research and gradually perused through the RHC website, Facebook page, Charity Commission page, and information put out by various local, voluntary sector organizations. It was with eagerness and anticipation that I came across the recruitment notice on the RHC website, seeking a Charity Administrator. Those who are familiar with pursuing entry-level jobs in the 2020s, within a career of their choosing, will undoubtedly have encountered the same rejection feedback many times over: ‘we thought you were an excellent candidate, but didn’t have enough experience for this role’. Unfortunately, gaining experience in any given sector depends on the willingness of someone to give you a chance and provide you with it. After receiving this feedback on countless occasions, Retreat House Chester - probably the smallest organization to whom I have ever sent a job application, and therefore with more to potentially lose – were the only ones to give me a chance and allow me to gain this valuable experience. 

Working alongside Clare Black, RHC’s Coordinator, my time here so far has been both enjoyable and challenging in equal measure. More than anything, it has been a learning experience; the parameters of which are broader than I could have anticipated. Firstly, I have learned more about what Retreat House Chester does and how its provision of retreats, retreat-related activities, and training resources can act as a model for similar projects in other urban communities. Striving to embed a sense of peace and reflection in the midst of everyday life, particularly at the heart of busy, inner-city environments, is a goal that we can all share. I have seen how the Retreat House project answers a very real and fundamental human need, and does so in an accessible and inclusive way. Secondly, I have built up an increasingly diverse portfolio of skills, experiences, and knowledge, all in relation to the challenges of running the day-to-day operations of a small charity. Whether this is: planning fundraising events; preparing grant-funding bids; drafting agendas and writing up minutes; designing benefactor appeals; creating information leaflets; distributing marketing materials; collaborating with organisations like the Charity Commission – all have given me a valuable insight into how charities are run. More broadly, I have also learned more about how the Charity Sector operates: the importance of public transparency, maintaining a comprehensive set of policies and procedures, and working in collaboration with regional and national bodies such as the Charity Commission, Cheshire West and Chester Council, and Cheshire West Voluntary Action. Thirdly, I have learned more about my home. Through working on preparations for our community outreach project in 2023, Reflective Chester, I have discovered a number of interesting and brilliant groups within Chester’s local charitable and voluntary network. The various charities and local voluntary organisations based here are the heart of Chester and define the city’s civic and community-minded culture. As beautiful and old as Chester may be, a city is about its people as much as its architecture. Working in the local charitable sector teaches you this more than anything else ever could. For all these experiences, I will forever be grateful to Retreat House Chester.

My wife and I share an admiration for the well-known adage, everything happens for a reason. When I come into work, I do so with a sense of purpose, a feeling as though I am working on a project that will endure beyond my time here, however long that may be. I believe that Retreat House Chester gave me this opportunity for a reason, that being the start of my time here as the entry point to a sector in which I hope to build a meaningful career. Thank you to Retreat House Chester, and whatever the future holds I look forward to playing my part in helping our charity to grow.

Michael Mitchell - Administrator

We are looking for a new treasurer

Our long-standing treasurer is looking to retire from his role, and we are thankful for his many years of voluntary work for Retreat House Chester. If you or someone you know might be interested in assisting our charity and taking on the role, please follow the links below for the role description and application form.

See the role description by clicking here.

Click here for an application form.
If you would prefer this as a Word document, click here.

Annual Report now available

We’re pleased to have published our Annual Report and Accounts - and you can read them on the Charity Commission website here.

We are recruiting!

Please go to our WELCOME page to find details of a new opportunity with Retreat House Chester!

A Wander through Reflective Chester

The treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand, said Henri Nouwen, a well-loved twentieth-century writer of spirituality. It’s similar to what another such writer Gerry Hughes meant when he said that we can find our direction in life through our appreciation of the world around us. In other words, we don’t have to go far in order to find what we’re looking for, or what matters to us, or what we need. It’s something which inspires RHC in our community project Reflective Chester (see our Reflective Chester page) as we seek to discover what’s ‘good for the soul’ right where we are.

Whatever our faith or beliefs, folk recognise that ‘good for the soul’ means things that uplift us, things that inspire us, things that speak to the heart. Reflective Chester activities use our city as a springboard for recognising those things and, importantly, having the chance to share such inspiration with others. All too often, the loudest voices around are far from ‘good for the soul’, so it’s refreshing to share in the quieter, gentler, joyful things we find in life.

To ‘re-launch’ Reflective Chester in person after the online living of 2020 and 2021, we celebrated ‘Reflective November’, with weekly events and a pop-up stall. Using the large top-floor room of Chester’s Bluecoat Building gave us all the benefits of comfortable social distancing, a historic community building (first a hospital, then a school and now home to almshouses and many of Chester’s charities), and wonderful views of the Welsh hills on the horizon. A city setting with a difference.

sunset view of the distant hills above the rooftop of the Bluecoat Building

In our Writing Workshop, our first event, we drew inspiration from local places, letting our imaginations wander through their stories and details, and also from the ‘small things’ of life. After playing with words, and a consideration of how poetry plays with words to help us with fresh perspectives or to make something real, we tried our hand at our own poems – with folk choosing themes ranging from a special memory, to a beloved family dog, to a favourite pen, and more. The work of just a morning, all the poems were beautiful and poignant, capturing the treasured essence of places and small things, and sharing that treasure.

the image of Grosvenor Park that inspired one of the poems in the workshop

Another week, it was the turn of the crafters. Collage, to be precise – with paper collected from the everyday – pages decorated with prints of local autumn leaves, or from charity-shop finds of music manuscripts or old poetry. We tore, glued, daubed, cut, stamped – and so on – very happily for our two hours, adding words taken from previous Reflective Chester activities as we put the finishing touches to our fun and mindful pieces. The suggestion was that we could make these collages into cards and gift tags for others – all part of the ‘rippling out’ effect of sharing in things that are good for the soul.

collage from the workshop

Our final morning in the Bluecoat was Conversation. Taking as our starting point that idea that our treasure is hidden in the ground on which we stand, we used our big Reflective Chester map, photos, sayings from others, and a few readings, to inspire our reflection and conversation. By the time our two hours were over, it felt like there was still so much to explore and discover, as we unearthed those treasures.

“…the city, the river and the hills holding a space for people”

”…the value of the chance for a different perspective”

”…permission to be purposeless”

— some of the things participants took away from the conversation

Our fourth week saw us outdoors, on a Reflective Chester walk. Our route took us from Abbey Square to Grosvenor Park, via the Eastgate Clock, the Cross, the weir, the Roman Gardens and the Groves, with pauses along the way to really notice what was around us, and how these places and their details might be inspiring. Again, it was good to be able to hear what others have said about our city in other Reflective Chester activities – for example, how the weir is a special place for so many, or where they find peaceful places. Ending our walk amidst the trees of Grosvenor Park, we recognised how fruitful it is just to take a little time to take notice, and the joy there is in doing this with others.

the much-loved weir: ‘the sparkly river’… ‘the sound of the water over the weir always lifts my soul’…

November also saw our pop-up stall at the Cathedral COP26 Fair, an event organised by Chester Sustainability Forum. One of more than 20 stalls with a range of environmental concerns, we invited folk to tell us what was good for the soul about Chester, by adding a sticker to our map, or writing us a postcard, or stopping for a chat – or all three. Within the context of this Fair, and the need for us all to take care of our world, Reflective Chester has a part to play by suggesting that we love the world well by starting right where we are. Find what’s good, and go from there. Treasure it.

mapping what’s good for the soul

We’re thankful for all the contributions - more than sixty - in the events of Reflective November, from those who came along and our volunteers who hosted. Gradually, more and more people are hearing the invitation to unearth the treasure hidden beneath their feet, and leave their own mark, their own footprint, on Reflective Chester so that this really is a community project, giving voice to what’s good for the soul.

Grateful thanks to...

... the Local Connections Fund of the National Lottery for funding to support the Bluecoat workshops and walk, bringing folk together from across the community.

... and the Jesuit Fund for Social Justice for funding to support the pop-up stall, and also the training of Reflective Chester volunteers and ongoing workshops with local groups, as well as our online presence, bringing reflective opportunities to people who need them.

September Blogging: Moving On

September feels like a turning point. I’ve never really lost that sense of it being a time of moving to the next stage of things, the new school year a regular reminder of moving on as a child, a student, a teacher and then a parent. Even without these, the season itself tells us of moving on as summer gives way to autumn, and harvest stores set us up for the times ahead.

The end of September sees the Autumn Equinox, the poised moment (it seems) in the tipping of the balance from light to darkness. Back in March, the Spring Equinox gave this blog cause to reflect on Time and its markers. Now, the Autumn Equinox puts us in mind of the passing between times, the movement through the stages of life.

On the night of this Equinox, I caught a glimpse of the moon – really huge, bright, and almost full. Going outside for a better sight of the beauty of this, and taking time to stand still to gaze (what a lovely thing to ‘moongaze’, a kind of contemplation), I noticed that the silver-white disc seemed to be moving upwards and slightly diagonally, through a clear sky towards the clouds. I had seen sunrise and sunset before, but never the moon like this – alone with this moon as it moved visibly, majestic, gentle, trustworthy.

As well as the sheer thrill and delight of it, it got me thinking. Two things, mainly.

One that there are times in life when the moves we make seem huge and we are very aware of change – just as I could see the movement of the moon. And yet those moves – which sometimes seem abrupt, like an end and a beginning – are part of a connected whole, perhaps the very flow of life, just as the moon is always moving, whether we can see that or not. Change is happening always – ‘To live is to change,’ said John Henry Newman, ‘and to change often is to become perfect.’

The other thing is that things are being held together. I was aware that what I was seeing was the moon’s orbit – or, more poetically, the moon encircling the earth, where I stood. The earth, where I stood, was being somehow wrapped, encircled, held. It was different from sunrise and sunset, which show the earth’s movement; rather, this was a circle being woven around us. ‘I was held together,’ as Malcolm Guite says in his new collection of responses to the Psalms, which we just read for RHC Book Club. And medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen:

O mighty course that runs within and through

the all—up in the heights, upon the earth,

and in the every depth—

you bind and gather all together.

In this moment of moongazing, this time of contemplation, the consolation of the moon and the stars ran deep.

Illustration by Elizabeth Wang, T-00039-OL, ‘When we pray in the name of Christ our prayer can enfold the whole world’, copyright © Radiant Light, www.radiantlight.org.uk

So on this night of Equinox, and in its meditation on movement and being held, I was aware of the tipping of balance, the changes of life. It used to mean new school uniform in September, a whole year bigger; now, many years later and in the second half of life (and Richard Rohr in ‘Falling Upwards’ introduced me to this sense of the two halves), I can see from experience how change weaves its way throughout life and its stages, connected and holding us together.

Maybe we can say it’s not just stages of life, but stages of spiritual life, too. A favourite image of the spiritual life comes to mind. Teresa of Avila, in sixteenth-century Spain, described the soul as an Interior Castle, a crystal ‘palace’ within us, and God (and Light) at the centre, and this centre surrounded by layers of rooms (or more beautifully ‘chambers’, ‘mansions’, or ‘dwelling places’) where the light is refracted more brightly the closer we come to the centre. One of the things I love about this image is how time and again she writes about us hovering on the threshold between rooms. Like Equinox, a time of poise, and then the balance tips… Teresa’s castle suggests that we are invited to be on the move, and that this is not linear or evenly paced.

Staying with the Mystics (as Teresa was), one word I’ve learnt afresh this year is ‘ecstasy’. I’ve learnt that apparently it means ‘movement’. Here’s Henri Nouwen: ‘‘To be ecstatic’ literally means to be outside of a static place. Thus, those who live ecstatic lives are always moving away from rigidly fixed situations and exploring new, unmapped dimensions of reality...’ In our May Retreat on Thin Places, those times and places when heaven and earth almost seem to touch, we touched on how the ecstasy that Christian mysticism speaks of might be about movement into the limitlessness of God. With God, who is without limits, there is always more to discover, further to go. An invitation to fullness of life.

And now we must move on. We take our RHC blessing with us, which we weave through all we do. From an inscription above the door of Chester’s old retreat house, it’s about movement across thresholds. Not just the threshold of a house, but the thresholds of life and our world. It speaks of life, its changes, and it is for us all. Go well.

Retreat House blessing

August Blogging: Souvenirs

I have a word of the month, and it’s ‘souvenir’. This year, I have a pebble as a souvenir of a summer break. I remember as a child bringing home souvenir dolls in French traditional dress as annual summer treasures, almost the highlight of each year. I still have scrapbooks full of holiday memories and a high number of old tickets for things. Over the years, the dolls and tickets graduated into other mementoes – some specifically aimed at tourists (the plastic Eiffel Tower, the glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary...) and others, in later years, more discreet (a locally-crafted pot or a painting). So now, there are many things at home which serve as souvenirs of other times and places in my life, and so hold special meaning. I’m thankful for that.

It's not just the obvious, though. All sorts of things are reminders of all sorts of times, places, people – not just the holiday souvenirs of summers. TS Eliot’s Prufrock says he has ‘measured out my life in coffee spoons’; I could measure mine out in bits and bobs. Setting them out in chronological order would tell you something of the story of my life – perhaps the chapters I feel especially thankful for.

I love the word ‘souvenir’ and all it suggests. For this French word I went to my French dictionary (a 35-year old souvenir) and found all the expected meanings, each rich in itself: memory, recollection, remembrance, keepsake, memento. It’s the verb, though, that I love – the doing, the action: se souvenir de... to remember. A verb suggests that something is happening, that something is alive. In that word there is ‘sous’ meaning ‘under’ and ‘venir’ meaning ‘to come’, and in that sense of something coming underneath there is the real richness of the idea. It suggests that a souvenir carries ‘underneath’ it, below the surface, within it, the time, place or person it reminds us of. It suggests that these real presences of time, place or person can come to the surface or ‘bubble up’ to appear to us very vividly, or even just faintly. And it suggests that times, places and people can ‘get under our skin’ and a souvenir can represent their impact on us, the change they bring or the impression they make. None of this is static, something is really happening. For me, all those suggestions are in that one word ‘souvenir’.

Maybe, I wonder, there might be echoes of faith in all this. Things of the past, collected and kept, and carrying an inner meaning and a presence that can still be present and true today; things that I choose to keep (even though some may be challenging); things that make me me, and develop as I develop, from childhood to maturity; things that point to something beyond what they are in themselves and invite a response or offer an experience. Perhaps all of that is partly what faith is, and maybe we recognise that for ourselves, whatever our faith. The words of Christ seem to run through as an echo: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’. Do it now, and it comes alive again. Bring it to mind and – somehow – it’s here.

So I have my treasure trove, my special souvenirs, my things to be thankful for, but of course it isn’t just the special and unusual that can be souvenirs. The things of every day, right on our doorstep, can carry meaning, memory, presence – if we let them. First we have to notice them. (Our Reflective Chester project is all about noticing what’s good for the soul in the everyday.) ‘The treasure which you seek is buried in the ground on which you stand,’ said Henri Nouwen. We don’t need the far-flung. The souvenirs of life are always close at hand.

back home

July Blogging: Summer Rest and Reading

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need,” said Cicero in Ancient Rome. Maybe, maybe not... but we get what he means. And oh for a simple life, in these so-complicated times. Maybe, now and again, over the summer we might find a moment or two to make life simple.

May we suggest some reading? Last week, RHC Book Club (which isn’t really a club) gathered on what has become trusty Zoom to hear one another’s summer reading suggestions. “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading,” said the poet Rilke not as long ago as Cicero – and, sharing our variety of suggestions, we couldn’t have agreed more. It was, as one of the group commented later, just delightful.

So July’s blog allows us to share those suggestions with you now. Our invitation was to bring a book that in some way connected with Christian spirituality. The wise among us know that that does not mean it has to be about Christian spirituality, or ‘holy’. Is it about compassion, longing, hurt, faith, hope, wonder, love, adventure... about our humanity and our world, our spirit and our life? Then that counts. And so in a short hour and a half, through accounts, readings and conversation, we revelled in variety, in things we knew and things that were new. Allow us too, then, to offer a word of caution and a disclaimer: none of these is endorsed by RHC! Read at your peril.

First up, we had three novels. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, for its fantasy and escapism, its perception on suffering and (spoiler alert) happy ending. The Phonebox at the Edge of the World by Laura Messina for its understanding of the slow process of grief, as well as its Japanese setting. And This is Happiness by Niall Williams for its portrayal of 1950s Irish village life. We won’t tell you the plots here – all details can be readily found online; rather, we’ll say how we noted the joy in reading wisdom and depth in a story, with an undercurrent of human faith and belief, how certain books can remind us of our childhoods and nostalgia for the familiar, how some can be rooted in places we’re visiting.

Our next suggestion followed on nicely, picking up on the sense of place. Celtic Quest by Robert Weston, with its history and fantasy, took us on the path of St Cuthbert and with a reading set in the midst of mountains and lakes. We could almost have been lying back in the little boat ourselves, looking up at the sky above. This suggestion was inspired in part by the attention RHC has given to ‘pilgrimage’ in these recent months. Especially dear to this reader was the sense of walking alongside others, in soul friendship, and how very important that has been this year. Our reading helps us recognise what’s important to us.

Then we had a true account of working with refugees and asylum seekers. Travel and arrival and departure of quite another kind, and so very deeply human. The Book of Boaz by Dave Smith was a choice inspired by this reader’s involvement with Chester as a City of Sanctuary. It was an account of risk and faith – both of those who travel and of the author who works to support them. A tale, this reader said, ‘of things happening that you can’t believe will happen’, told with a surprising lightness of touch while still serious. This ended with our reader reading to us a short story she had written herself. We noticed the importance of telling stories and giving voice.

We wondered what could follow that, and found that the next suggestion in fact followed on well. Border: a Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova tells stories of crossing of the borders of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece as the author, living in the Scottish Highlands, traces her roots. A reflection too on East and West, a relationship which underlies so much in study and understanding of ‘spirituality’. We were treated to a reading of a dancing priest, and its joy and humour (all the more so, given this particular reader...). We noticed the joy in reading that offers an encounter with the world, observing that travel books have increased their sales even as we cannot travel. Perhaps this kind of thoughtful cultural encounter, as readers rather than simply tourist visitors, makes the world a better place.

And then another novel, this time Eyrie by Tim Winton – the Australian author keeping our attention global. Themes of people on the edge, of ecology, indigenous character and relationship – offering us a perspective worthy of attention. A reading brought out the value of relationship in its myriad forms, rooted in character, and the underlying background of faith to the character’s lives. How stories about convincing characters and their lives and relationships can put us in touch with authenticity, truth, humanity and compassion, and how relationship itself is spiritual: all these were there.

Then two suggestions in one, with a common theme of Benedictine monastic life. Hildegard of Bingen as a 12th century German-born nun was someone to read about – especially perhaps in the account from Matthew Fox. A woman for our times, her polymath character ranging from mystical visions to the amount of nutmeg it’s helpful to ingest before it becomes too much. This reader’s enthusiasm for another woman of love, justice and courage was infectious. Alongside this, the Cadfael books by Ellis Peters, this fictional character set at the same time as Hildegard, also monastic, but ‘local’ with a Shropshire setting. These monastic characters from the Middle Ages – real and fictional – were alive to us: through our reading we can encounter other times as well as other places, and find that some themes are perennial.

And so to our close – with poetry. The ability of poetry to calm the busy mind inspired this choice for summer reading. To calm, but not anaesthetise: this reader found poetry could take her to truth, rawness, beauty by its filtering and distillation, using just the right words in the right way. Sitting with a poetry anthology and browsing through poems both familiar and new was recuperative and restorative – just right for summer. Such enjoyment could be found perhaps with the connected anthologies of modern poetry, Staying Alive and Being Human edited by Neil Astley. We closed with a poem about peaches to send us into Summer.

“A book is a dream you hold in your hands,” according to writer Neil Gaiman. This morning we had heard a little of others’ dreams, of what’s in the soul. This summer, let’s keep reading.

June Blogging: Why Retreat Matters

Our June blog takes a look at what we’ve learnt from this last year...

Making retreat widely available and accessible because it’s good for people and fundamental to how we live is a founding principle of Retreat House Chester. This last year (or year and a half...) has seen this develop in remarkable unexpected ways: making retreat available and accessible by moving online; a global encounter with Big Questions and with our humanity in all its greatness and vulnerability; and an awakening of ‘spirituality’. Something has been shifting this year.

That shift makes Retreat House Chester all the more necessary. People need Peace; we need ‘easy’ ways to engage with big questions and spirituality. In setting up six years ago, global pandemic was not a context we envisaged. But now it feels like we were ahead of the curve, and the time for making retreat widely available and accessible has certainly come.

In the first lockdown of March 2020, like many charities, we found ourselves working out how we might survive such a change to our work and such uncertainty ahead. From swiftly adapting to online resources and then to online events as the crisis lengthened, and with the essential support of grant funding and donations, Retreat House Chester both negotiated a way through the year and also discovered and developed ways which will be worth carrying with us into the future.

We believe that Retreat House Chester addresses a fundamental human need. Spiritual experiences relate to a fundamental dimension of human existence – whether someone is ‘religious’ or not - and are frequently reported across all cultures. Indeed, retreat itself is common across cultures and through history, as a fundamental and valued part of living; we like to say it is ‘as old as the hills’.

Responding to this fundamental need, RHC has always been an imaginative contemporary response, enabling folk to take a little time quite easily and find ways to engage with their spiritual life. Now, pandemic circumstances have awoken many to a sense of ‘something more’, and it’s worth paying attention to. But retreat is not just personal. There are social benefits to retreat, too. It’s the kind of thing we see when reports show how personal wellbeing improves the wellbeing of society in general. It kind of goes without saying – but it’s important to say because the perception is often that retreat is somehow self-indulgent, when in fact one person’s retreat can help us all.

There may be an echo here with one of the values in our Vision and Values: ‘being small in a big picture’. My own small retreat affects a bigger picture. In other ways, this value speaks of the value of ‘local’ at a time when people can and do access online events anywhere in the world. Although we do have folk joining from locations further afield – which is wonderful - we have been told repeatedly by many people that they join us online because we are local, or at least regional, giving a sense of local connection and relationship at a time when we have all needed such things. We have all learnt this year how we are part of the big world, but also how we need our local world too. It’s like the micro-cultures in a healthy eco-system. Our grassroots matter.

our community mosaic, made by folk coming along to RHC, is inspired by the ripple effects of retreat, and how we are each part of the whole

So what have folk told us this year? “I think that what happens in this hour and a half is rather extraordinary.” This comment sent in after one of our events echoes much of what we are told by those who come along to activities with Retreat House Chester – that what we are doing is special and also that it is hard to find elsewhere. We are glad that we have been able to find ways to continue to offer our ‘ways to retreat for all people as a part of living’, throughout a year which may be described as ‘extraordinary’ in itself. Here are just some things folk have said about our retreat-house-online this year:

Just to say thank you so much for this retreat. It was a really fruitful time... thought-full, thought inspiring, sensitively crafted. Also, in a practical way I thought the format totally worked...

Thank you so much for organising the event. I cannot explain how much I enjoyed it and I think/hope received so much...

I really enjoyed it at the time and have benefitted from it deeply since...

Thank you for such a beautifully led retreat this morning. I have taken a lot from it and it will carry me through the rest of Lent and beyond...

I am finding the resources on the Living Differently pages so useful and stimulating and enriching...

the sessions I have joined so far have been wonderful...

the session was informative, participative and most of all enjoyable...

Thank you for another very enjoyable and very useful session. They just get better and better and I am going to miss them when they finish...

The series and today have been extraordinarily rich, overflowing with possibilities at every point - such a profound experience....

authentic listening and connection...

comforting... calming... relaxing... productive... helpful... challenging... embracing... enriching... nurtured... encouraged...

the graceful space that is Retreat House Chester...

Let’s have more of these please..

“Thank you for the wonderful opportunity you are giving us.” Time and again, folk have sent in their thanks. We, in turn, say a big ‘thank you’ to all those who have been a part of Retreat House Chester this year, in whatever way that means.

The crisis of this pandemic has thrown into relief the human need and capacity for the things that we call ‘retreat’. As it always has done for folk, retreat will have a much-needed part to play in what emerges from these times, both immediately and into the future – for ourselves and for us all.

This month’s blog draws on our Annual Report for 2020-21, which also contains much more. It will be published soon and available on our website.

May Blogging: Pilgrim Ways

It’s maybe fitting that this May blog is being posted in early June.  Pilgrimage can both slow us down in some way – taking the footpath rather than the highway – but also be about arriving in the end.  So, a little more slowly than usual, the May blog on Pilgrimage is here in the end.

Throughout these months of Spring to Summer 2021, RHC thoughts have been with Pilgrimage.  We’re not alone in that; pilgrim paths are popular again, with old paths being resurrected, new paths being established, and more pilgrims making their way.  We’re paying attention to it at RHC in the here and now because Pilgrimage seems to be able both to speak deeply to our pandemic experiences and also, more light-heartedly, to help us travel imaginatively when travelling physically is problematic. 

The pilgrim path is both confined and open.  Following a pilgrim way – from, say, London to Canterbury, or more locally from Chester to Lichfield (or vice versa) on the Two Saints Way – means following a defined path, a route trodden by others.  In some ways, there’s a similarity it seems with what we’ve all been doing following the restrictions of Covid: the way is defined for us, and we walk it alongside others.  There’s a difference, though, in that the destination of a pilgrimage is known as you set out, whereas for much of the last eighteen months or so it has felt like our destination is uncertain.  Where are we heading, we have wondered.  When will we get there? 

But the key to pilgrimage is that really, deep down, we don’t know where we are heading.  Geographically we do, but what about spiritually, emotionally, physically?  In these ways, pilgrimage becomes an open road, trodden by others, yes, but also unique to each traveller.  What are my own reserves, my own discoveries?  How will I be changed?  Perhaps these questions are no less relevant as we have made our way (by staying put) through Covid times.

wise words on The Two Saints Way

Even when we are living with physical restrictions, as we all have been, we are able to travel with our imagination.  So for RHC Book Club we have just read ‘The Extra Mile: a 21st Century Pilgrimage’ by Peter Stanford (not to be confused with ‘Pilgrimage: Journeys of Meaning’, by the same author and just published).  This book, says the author’s website, is ‘a modern-day pilgrimage round eight of Britain's ancient religious sites, … taking the spiritual temperature of our apparently secular and sceptical age’.  So while staying at home we’ve been transported through reading to such places as Iona, Bardsey Island, Glastonbury and Lindisfarne, in the company of the mixed bunch of very modern pilgrims Stanford encounters along the way and whose ‘emotion, independence, democracy and innovation’ he ends up appreciating. 

Running through the book, and the theme of Pilgrimage, is a sense of how distracted we can be by the demands and diversions of everyday life – and how making a journey to these ancient sites and ‘being present’ there can enable us to slow down so that ‘I can feel a space beginning to open up inside me’ (Stanford, on the journey to Iona).  In some small way, sitting down to read a chapter about, say, Iona can also enable that.  Without movement of physical travel, we can still be moved.  We can be ‘transported’ by something that invites our attention – a book, art, music, film, a hobby, time with another person, meditation, prayer.  It’s an inner journey, a journey of the imagination, or the heart, or the soul, opening us up. 

Pilgrimage isn’t about standing still.  Slowly, as a society if not as a world community, we are moving with the easing of lockdown (at least, at the time of writing…).  Pilgrimage can teach us to remember where we have been, and to notice what happens along the way, and return to our ‘normal’ places knowing that we have been changed.  This kind of thoughtful and reflective attitude seems important as we move on from the last eighteen months.  Finding ourselves again in pub gardens, in the company of others, inside buildings, in ‘the office’, do we just forget the path we’ve been on and the things we’ve experienced along the way, as if it didn’t happen?  Both the things that have been almost unbearably hard, and the treasures we may have discovered too: do we ignore them or do we do something with them?

up or down - on the Two Saints Way

Pilgrims are known for their tales.  One of our oldest English works of literature is Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’, a medieval collection of imagined stories told by the individuals in a group of pilgrims making their way together from London to Canterbury.  Through our RHC Tuesday Conversations, we have been exploring aspects of Pilgrimage and in doing so we discover and tell something of our own stories.  Some of this conversation touches on our pandemic experiences.  Alongside loneliness, fear, uncertainty and doubt, there are tales of patience, gratitude, noticing, resilience, trust.  Sharing tales of the ground on which we walk – both the speaking and the listening – is a treasured part of Pilgrimage.  Each with our own tale, we discover that we are companions nonetheless.

None of us knows for sure what is happening for our world, our society, ourselves.  But how we travel matters, and what we do with what we have learnt and experienced along the way matters too.  The ancient practice of Pilgrimage can still remind us of this as we make our way into the second half of 2021.  The British Pilgrimage Trust suggests that a pilgrimage is a walk with an ‘intention’ – ‘dedicate your journey to something you want help with, or for which you want to give thanks’, they say.  Or, in the months ahead, maybe both.

two ways on the Two Saints Way

April Blogging: Background Music

The fountain in the ancient Cloister Garden of Chester Cathedral is something of a Chester landmark. Not just for photographs, though, it is something to be heard as well as seen – the playful, gentle, energetic, refreshing sound of the water is part of the natural music of this small space in the middle of the city, enclosed on four sides yet roofless to the skies, the heavens.

It’s unlikely that many who see, hear and enjoy this fountain know the story it depicts, of Christ and the Samaritan Woman; and if they do know it, it is probably as a story about living water or possibly about outsiders. It’s also a story about conversation.

Like the ‘quiet’ of the Cloister garden, the quiet of retreat is really an invitation to hear the natural music, to listen, to notice the conversation at the heart of things and to find ourselves part of that conversation. Making a connection with something beyond ourselves and yet also intimate. Something universal that is also deeply personal. Living water, for me.

Conversation really matters. Not just the conversation we can have on our own, when we connect with our surroundings or our God, but conversation between people. How much we have looked forward to being able to talk ‘properly’ with people again after screens and phones, to see friends, family, colleagues and even strangers ‘for real’ and be with them. The word ‘conversation’ has its roots in meanings that can help us understand why we value this. It means both ‘to dwell with, and be familiar with’, and also ‘to turn things over’: conversation is about chewing the cud with those with whom we live. It’s about living together.

Someone telling us why they valued Retreat House Chester told us this: “It’s important to be able to speak with people at depth... There are very few places you can do this...” Important though it is, perhaps we aren’t very good at conversation. Here, again, in the national press and about life now: “... the chance of any shared reflection on the last year’s events still seems slim. Secularised societies do not really work like that. And Britain is a perfect example, as proved by a prospect that somehow feels both exciting and absurd: a return to shops, pub gardens and “normality”, and people being encouraged to make merry as if nothing has happened” (from How do faithless people like me make sense of this past year of Covid? John Harris www.theguardian.com March 28 2021). In our new socialising, what about conversation?

Noticing the louder voices as they drown out anything quieter, we sometimes hear conflict rather than conversation, and sometimes the bravado of the superficial. It sounds very different from the natural music of the Cloister Garden, which can only truly be heard by listening.

Real conversation doesn’t mean we aren’t different, diverse – where’s the conversation in that? – but it does mean inclusion. A space that is big enough for us to listen to one another, to hear one another, to speak, and to hear ourselves speak – and to find what grows from this, because it will certainly be fruitful rather than dead-ended. There’s something mutual, common, spacious and revealing about conversation. Rather than shouting facts and opinions at each other, or failing to listen, or meeting an agenda, there is space to wonder and reflect, together.

So at RHC we offer the chance to have conversations, where no-one is interested in winning an argument or being the loudest person in the room. We offer the chance to speak tentatively, wonderingly, of the spiritual dimension to our lives that maybe we don’t speak of elsewhere, or we hide away, or don’t know a home for. We find no reason to disagree with research that repeatedly finds that spiritual experience is a fundamental part of human existence and which says that such experience is nonetheless often taboo. We think it’s true that people don’t talk with others about the times and ways we feel more alive, when we feel that there is something more, when we search for meaning. We make these conversations easier, and to help us we use gently structured and resourced ways* - something to lead us gently into conversation and someone to shape and hold the time together. We know how important this will be in the times we’re in and the times ahead, so we’re finding new ways too of making space for conversation.

Good things happen as, together, we listen, connect, learn, give, feel curiosity, compassion, gratitude. They are ‘Wellbeing’ buzzwords, perhaps, but good conversation makes them real. And they are what we need, as we sift the fragments of our lives. As we learn to speak with one another again, face to face after life behind closed doors, and vulnerably as we emerge, let’s make space to listen out for the life-giving water constantly flowing, the natural music.

* especially that promoted by Shoreline Conversations (clicking takes you to their website)

March Blogging: It's About Time

At the turn of the year, this blog found itself reflecting on PLACE. Now, in March, the Spring Equinox prompts reflections on TIME and its rhythms.

In the days when we used to have tourists, Chester’s Eastgate Clock was a main attraction. It’s unusual, because you can walk under it on street level or right next to it on the walls above: literally, physically, ‘passing the time’. Close by, the four-sided clocktower on the Town Hall famously has only three clock faces – the (unlikely) story being that there is no west-facing clock because the English won’t give the Welsh the time of day. More than merely functional, clocks can tell stories.

Last weekend was the Spring Equinox, and this weekend the ‘clocks change’. And this week inbetween marks one year since the announcement of our first coronavirus lockdown. And in my own way I have been aware of being part of history this week, as I have had my first Covid jab and witnessed the wonderful thing that is the vaccination centre at Chester Racecourse, made possible by so much human effort. Historic times, history in the making. ‘May you live in interesting times’, indeed.

History in the making at the racecourse

And so these days I have found myself thinking about Time. That Equinox moment of pure balance between day and night, sun and moon, a moment of poise and equilibrium, a tipping point between darkness and light. The lighter evenings and the dawn chorus. An anniversary as a natural marker of time, of the 365 days (more or less) our planet has orbited the sun. Day and night, seasons, years, planets, dates, history.

I think about time a lot of the time. Recently, following my remark to a shielding friend that it seemed very appropriate that she had her vaccination at the time of Candlemas, a February Festival of Light in the Christian calendar, our little WhatsApp group started to chat about festivals, special dates and the moon... One friend commented on how helpful it was to be reminded of these things, that such markers of time give some shape to what can feel like shapeless days and times, and shape keeps us going. By celebrating Time itself we make Time our companion and friend.

The joy is that we don’t have to invent such markers, festivals and celebrations. Look in any calendar and you’ll find enough special dates to make any day special. For example, here are just some for March and April this year, listed chronologically: St David’s Day; World Book Day; Commonwealth Day; International Women’s Day; Mother’s Day; First Day of Spring; St Patrick’s Day; World Water Day; British Summertime; Palm Sunday; Passover; Holi; April Fools’ Day; Maundy Thursday; Good Friday; Easter Sunday; World Health Day; Vaisakhi; the First Day of Ramadan; St George’s Day.

Celebrating or marking time seems to be connected to something deep within. Creatures that we are, of this earth, we resonate with the passage of time as it wends its way both within us and outside us. A calendar is far more than just somewhere to write appointments and things to do; it’s the story of our lives, and primal.

At RHC we draw on a long tradition of marking time. We are inspired by the calendar, and sometimes that’s religious dates and sometimes general dates. We encourage taking time (or making time) for retreat, for being attentive to the things we might not otherwise give time to. And, more deeply, underpinning much of what we do is a fundamental – primitive, perhaps – respect for time and its rhythms, which is so beautifully expressed in the ancient monastic hours. These ‘hours’ mark the passage of a day and our own journey through a day (‘journey’ from French ‘jour’ and Latin ‘dia’ for ‘day’). The monastic hours help us to ‘tune in’ to the natural rhythm to the day which we can lose in our busyness and distractions, and it is good to find that rhythm, to experience it, to connect with it. This natural rhythm can put us in touch with the heart of things; for contemporary Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, this heart of things is ‘the life of the world, ...love, the force that moves the sun and the moon and the stars… It is the sort of thing that monks, mystics and poets come to know very well by paying close attention to the flow of hours around them.’

In our own small way, then, a Peace Day with RHC, for example, consists of a beginning inspired by the first hour of the day ‘Prime’ which marks a start to the day’s activities, a middle inspired by ‘Sext’ the noonday prayer for Peace, and a close inspired by ‘Vespers’ the evening hour of letting go of the day with thanks. And in Covid times, our Saturday morning retreats have been shaped by gathering on Zoom on the hour at 10, 11, 12 and 1, allowing us to find the natural rhythm of things, even in this most modern of ways.

From hours, we can go large to days, weeks, months, seasons, years...Our Reflective Chester project includes noticing favourite times of day, favourite ways to spend time, favourite seasons, and finds monthly themes and seasonal themes ‘taking time to notice the positive in the ordinary things that surround us every day’ – making up ‘a year of reflective living’. How we spend our time is how we live.

Our Reflective Chester logo suggests 12 hours or 12 months in the circular 12 ‘r’s

And we can go small, too – from hours to minutes to moments. The present moment of mindfulness and so important too in spirituality. The moment suggested by poet TS Eliot as the ‘still point of the turning world’. The ‘wow moment’ we notice in Reflective Chester, when we become suddenly aware of something beautiful, and eternity seems present in a moment and time stands still.

The ‘I AM’ of the present moment, here in our Abbey Square Back Room

At this time of equinox, new season, anniversary, lockdown roadmap, six weeks of Lent, Easter – or however you’re marking time – take time to notice Time. The things to notice and enjoy about time are endless. I discovered recently something about 25th March, the date on which I’m writing this blog, and in the calendar the Feast of the Annunciation, when eternity broke into Mary’s day in a visit from the Angel Gabriel with greetings of God’s favour and news of her baby whom she would call Jesus. 25th March, I learnt, was considered the first day of the year in England until 1752. It’s a day about beginnings, eternity and the present moment, and, rhythmically, it comes round every year. Happy New Year! Again!

We are very thankful for support from Cheshire West and Chester’s Let’s Turn This Around COVID-19 Fund. The grant enables us to produce this blog and run some of our activities in response to the pandemic.

February Blogging: Starting Spring with St Brigid

We were glad to receive this from Michelle who led our Spring Creative Workshop for us…

Spring is almost here! That’s what so many of us are trying to hold on to in these cold dark days of winter. In the Celtic Christian tradition, Spring has already begun - 1st and 2nd February marking the start of the season with the festival of Imbolc, celebrating the first ewe’s milk and new life. So with this is mind and with signs of new life all around us, Retreat House held the first event of our 2021 programme with a Creative Workshop at the start of the month.

As well as being Imbolc, 1st February is the feast day of St. Brigid, and the next day is Candlemas (traditionally the end of Christmas). The workshop combined all three of these feast days, to mark the start of Spring and encourage hope for the year ahead. Our workshop craft was to make a St. Brigid cross; but before we did that we spent some time getting to know this “grace-filled” saint, and here below is a chance to spend a little time with her too, at the start of Spring. (Jan Richardson’s book In the Sanctuary of Women was a helpful and inspiring resource in finding out more about Brigid.)

Ireland is often described as the Isle of the Saints, as it has a history full of women and men who dedicated their lives to God. Of the Irish saints, one of the most beloved is Brigid of Kildare. Brigid was born in 452 AD, just as Christianity began to take root in Ireland. The first written evidence of Brigid’s life didn’t emerge until about a hundred and fifty years after her death, so she inhabits the land between history and legend. It is written that Brigid was the daughter of a pagan chieftain and a Christian slave girl.  Many of the tales of Brigid’s life read much like those of other female saints from back in time: her saintly qualities were evident from an early age; she refused to marry, in order to live a monastic way of life; and she was thought of as a miracle-worker, having influence over illness, the weather and animals. Today, we might especially respond to her as a woman of justice and one who is described as “ground-breaking”. Active and intrepid, Brigid is known to have founded a number of monasteries, the most influential one being the double monastery, for both women and men, which she established at Cill Dara (the “Church of the Oak”), now known as Kildare.

The tales written about Brigid particularly emphasise the hospitality that brought her renown. Brigid is described as someone who “found the poor irresistible” and ministered to them with “a habit of the wildest bounty.” Her lavish generosity tended to put her at odds with her family and her monastic community. In one account, her father became so exasperated with the generosity she displayed with his possessions, that he carted her off to the king, intending to sell her to him. While Brigid waited for her father to talk with the king, a man with leprosy came along; she immediately gave him her father’s precious sword. When her father returned and inquired about the sword, Brigid responded, “Christ has taken it.” She wasn’t sold to the king, thankfully; maybe the king was worried for his own possessions!

In Jan Richardson’s book In the Sanctuary of Women she writes this: “A strong domestic homeliness pervades Brigid’s miracles. A sense of gracefulness shimmers in the utterly mundane.” Another writer, Esther de Waal, says: “She has made the mundane the edge of glory”.  In this, she is truly Celtic, finding the divine in the ordinary. Brigid was not only a worker of domestic miracles but also a woman of power. She was a charismatic leader, who was influential in monastic, civic, and natural realms; she was ever at ease among kings and bishops. Brigid possesses a sense of justice that prompts her to secure the freedom of prisoners and slaves (and even, the story goes, to move a river in the cause of fairness...).

Sometimes the stories we hear about the saints can be hard to understand in our modern culture, but the writers of their “lives” wanted to show that the power the saints possessed did not originate from the saints themselves but instead flowed from their union with Christ and their intense desire to model him in their lives. In addressing our imagination, the stories seek to not simply inform but to inspire us.  The stories may make us raise an eyebrow now and again, but they may also raise our spirits.

Brigid died around 525. St. Brigid is remembered as a woman of generosity, hospitality, justice, and friendship – values it’s hard to argue with.  For Brigid, this rose from great faith and the grace of God. Her physical grave remains a mystery, but Ireland continues to be full of reminders of her legacy, with towns, holy wells, and churches all named after her.

And so to our craft of St Brigid’s crosses.  One of the legends tells us that as Brigid sat by the bedside of a pagan chieftain—possibly her father—while he lay dying, she gathered up some of the rushes from the floor and began to weave them into a cross as she told him about her faith and Christ whom she loved. These crosses are still made today and hung above the door of people’s homes, as a welcome to visitors. As we welcomed the coming of Spring, gathering companionably together on Zoom each in our own home, crafting crosses from very ordinary material, and mindful of the RHC blessing ‘Peace to this house’, it seemed a wholly fitting way to celebrate.

from a visit to the ‘Isle of the Saints’, and a glimpse of something more….

January Blogging: At the turn of the year

a second post in our occasional bog

Some reflections on ‘Place’ at the turn of the year…

Last year, 2020, in the later months, after half a year of living with pandemic, I discovered a new word.  Kith.  I say ‘discovered’ because although I had known the word for years, I had for all that time mistaken its meaning.  ‘Kith and kin’ had meant to me something like ‘family and friends’, and indeed that is how it has come to be used.  In fact, ‘kith’, I discovered, is not about people, but about place.

Kith is the home ground beneath your feet, the place of your family and your birth, the land you know as home.  In 2020, the original sense of kith - of land and home - appealed to me.

It appealed strongly, and I wasn’t sure why.  At about the time of this discovery, I was finding my imagination often drawn to green fields and drystone walls.  Born in London (within the sound of Bow Bells, in fact) and living an urban life here in Chester, this rural scene is not my kith.  But it felt more visceral than that – something in my bones, my blood, my soul was at home in this setting, and I found it consoling.

I had spent a rare time away from home for a July week, when such things were allowed though I did it with much caution.  The highlight of this week, for me, was a walk in evening light after a grey rainy day cleared, across such fields with their sheep and drystone.  A deer ran through the field just before us, then leapt over a wall into woodland.  That evening – or more precisely, that place – has stayed vivid in my imagination as a standout moment in a year where monotony has loomed large.  Perhaps that is why, later, when I heard of kith, it resonated.

My experience in that place, and my love of it since, and the discovery of kith have all led me to realise that the land is my home.  Not ‘My heart is in the Dales’, but more than that: I am of the earth and all that is in it.  Without the enforced way of living in 2020, I may not have so readily come to this realisation.  In another year, a field walk may not have been such a highlight.  In other years I have never spent so much time in my small garden, or tending to it, and there were times last Spring when nature seemed acutely vivid there.  I have never heard such birdsong, nor so many people talking about birdsong.  And my experience of caring for my small plot of the natural world in a time of pandemic brought home to me what it means to care for the planet, and what happens when we don’t.  These were things I ‘knew’ already, but I really learnt them by living them.

Just as my relationship with the land, our world, our planet, changed in 2020, so too my relationship with ‘place’.  I have never spent so much time in one place.  Staying put has been a challenge, even for one who is not a natural adventurer.  I have had to learn to be satisfied with the place where I am, because I can’t go anywhere else.  I’ve been helped in this by the art of noticing what’s good.  Noticing the small things.  The things to be thankful for, here in this place.  Today it’s the pattern and texture of a favourite cushion; yesterday it was the garden step; tomorrow it will be... who knows?  If I remind myself to look with open eyes, to open my senses, I open myself to the possibility of surprise, wonder, joy.

This is good for the soul.  Place can heal, if we open ourselves to its gifts.  At the turn of the year, I was reading ‘H is for Hawk’ by Helen Macdonald, a telling of how training a hawk – Mabel – gave shape and process to her grief after her father’s death.  Her bereavement is a time of profound wrenching sadness, loss, life-changing.  This autobiographical account, an acclaimed prize-winning bestseller, is also a homage to place: the fields and woods, the hedgerows, the sky, a landscape in all its changing seasons.  Reading this at the heart of winter gave me the beauty, the presence, of landscape and the land, and all the details of it – and it was life-giving.

Towards the end, she writes of how – like she and Mabel out flying - we build our own landscape by navigation: ‘a slow transformation of my landscape over time into what naturalists call a local patch, glowing with memory and meaning.’  I love that.  I love that we make somewhere our own place by being there over time, by living in it and with it.  Not perhaps a native place, but still a kind of kith in that it’s where we feel at home. 

With ‘place’ capturing my attention, and sinking deeper into my heart and soul, I heard another story straddling the turn of the year.  In 2020 – 21, the story of the nativity seemed to me to be a story of displacement: an expectant couple travelling from home by state decree; shepherds leaving the fields where they live; magi from afar; a refugee family fleeing to another land.  A manger for a bed.  God on earth, at our mercy and who will die in love for us.  For all our staying put this year, we have been displaced – removed from what was familiar and challenged by something different.  The nativity story shows us that God is born into this displacement, and dwelt amongst us, sharing our life on earth to show us our true place of life with God.  God as kith, perhaps – for ‘in God we live, and move, and have our being’.

In his great work ‘The Four Quartets’, twentieth-century poet TS Eliot says this:

‘We will not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.’

 In this first month of 2021, I hope for a new year.  May I know afresh – as if ‘for the first time’ - the land, home, healing, God.  Come the Spring, may I wake up.  This year, coming through this pandemic, may I know the deep consolation of Place.

Blog Beginnings...

Come the New Year, we’re hoping to begin a regular blog with pieces contributed by folk with an RHC connection. Here’s a beginning…

I was reminded today of an experience I had a year ago. We were on holiday on the south coast. The tide was going out on the beach where we were walking.

All of a sudden the sea appeared to stop moving all together, the waves became completely minimal, hardly any movement at all, so still. I thought this was very strange and couldn't remember ever seeing this before. It was like the sea had paused.....

Today reading my devotional it described this phenomenon, that moment when the sea is between the ebb and flow; that moment when it pauses. There is a time of poise when it is neither ebbing or flowing.

These words "pause" and "poised" made me think of where we are right now.

In this moment of pause, between the ebb and flow there is time for peaceful reflection, but just as the sea doesn't stay paused for ever, nor will we.

The sea is "poised" and ready for the next tide.

As we approach advent are we poised and hopeful of what God can do?

As we approach a new year are we poised and expectant of what God will do?

And as we face a different future to what we may have thought or planned, are we poised and ready for what God has planned?

Remember this is just a pause!

This piece also appears on the Pathways to God website of the Jesuits in the UK, and you can see it here.

From the Chair of Trustees

This Autumn our Trustee body has seen some changes, with new trustees Claire Egan and Peter Gubi joining us, and Peter Howell-Jones’s and Terry Green’s terms of office coming to a close. Together, our trustees oversee the development and good running of RHC, and we’re thankful indeed for this service and support they give as volunteers. Below, our new Chair writes to us all…

My first visit to the Retreat House Chester was back in the late 1980s, with no idea that my future would bring me to this city to live. It was a fantastic time, one which changed my spiritual and mental and physical life – for ever! (And if I had more time I could tell you the story – but it takes about half an hour to tell!) Then in 2016 my wife Anne and I retired to Chester, and found to our delight that our arrival matched the public launch of the new Retreat House – what a joy that was to discover.

And now things have changed again, with the Retreat House thriving, although in a different form to its original dream, and with all the national and local Covid restrictions and opportunities causing us to look again at what God is calling us to be and to do. What we are finding is that people are being responsive to both the needs and to the opportunities, with a good number “signing up” for what we are running, and with exciting things opening up in the New Year too.

A small but significant change has taken place in the background, as Terry Green has stood down as Chair of the Trustees, where he has served faithfully since the outset. We are grateful for all he has given to us at RHC, and are glad to think that he is still going to be involved in what we do. Allied to Terry's departure, and having served as a trustee since early 2018, I have been asked to Chair the Trustees, and I am happy to do so, God being my helper, and that has given me this chance to write to you all.

So what am I writing about? Firstly of course the good news of God's blessing on RHC and what we are doing. Secondly, to announce Terry's departure and my arrival. And thirdly to invite you (and indeed myself too) to reflect on our partnership at RHC, and to look at the year ahead.

What does that year look like? I don't know! But then I'm not sure anyone knows the details at this stage – we don't even know what the government will do when it next announces our national and local steps forward. But I do know that God is still active, and I am sure that RHC is a (small!) part of God’s work. And that means that you and I can still sign up, and still pray for our work, and still give what we can to make it all happen.

We are so grateful for all the volunteer work that goes on in the background, although clearly that has changed in 2020, and we are also grateful for the faithful financial support that many are able to give too. Our Friends Scheme is one way we have of recognising that giving, and I would ask us all (that includes me!) to check our own level of support to the work we do. It would be tremendous if we could, by the grace of God, renew our commitment to RHC in this way, as well as in other ways, and make a sign of our thankfulness and faith in this way. So please think and pray – and please, if you can, respond! You’ll find everything you need about how to donate on the SUPPORT US page of our website.

Wishing you God's blessing and God's peace now and in the year ahead.

Paul Towner

Read our Annual Report 2019-20

Our Annual Report 2019-20 is available to read on the Charity Commission website here. In particular, we were so encouraged by the findings of our new feedback conversations in Spring 2020, included in the Report, and how they show that RHC continues to respond to need and make a real difference.

Read our Annual Report 2018-19

We’re proud of what we’ve achieved in the last year, as we continue to offer and develop ‘retreat in the city’. Ever wondered what it’s all about? You can read our Annual Report for 2018 - 19 on the Charity Commission website by clicking here (external website).

Launch of Friends of Retreat House Chester!

Three years after our first Launch event, and now that we are established in Abbey Square and working throughout Chester to bring retreat to the city, we are delighted to be launching Friends of Retreat House Chester.

Friends will be key to what we do, in their support of this unique and much-needed way of offering peace in the city. The support of Friends will help us offer

• quiet days

• led retreats

• opportunities for reflection - alone, one-to-one, or in groups

• workshops

• activities with groups with special social needs

• spirituality resources

Friends are invited to two special events each year, keeping us all in touch and helping Retreat House Chester grow. RHC is all about the people involved, and Friends will be a special part of this.

Retreat House Chester is entirely dependent financially on fundraising and its programme. We need our Friends! We hope that in turn our Friends will enjoy being part of the story of Retreat House Chester and retreat in the city.

Please click here for more on becoming a Friend.

Thank you…