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Summer at the Center
Week 1: July 10-15
Topics on Spiritual Direction
Choose from our options of dynamic speakers and build your own retreat during our weeklong gathering.
Come explore topics in spiritual direction to enrich and deepen your life and ministry!
*Retreat includes the weeklong program, and meals and accommodations at Mercy Center*
Learning Grants Available
These are unprecedented times. If you need financial assistance, please fill out the Learning Grant application. We want to make sure our offerings are available to everyone.
Apply Here
Telling Our Stories In Spiritual Direction In Our Times: The Effect of the Pandemic and More
Keynote Address: Janet Ruffing, RSM
Date: July 10
Time: 7PM - 8:30PM
Price: FREE
How the pandemic has become a shared story for our time. What are the stories we tell about our experience of the past few years of experiencing the pandemic and its aftermath? How do these stories illuminate our spirituality collectively and personally? What happens when we begin to notice the symbols that emerge? And, how do our stories lead us to hope and healing?
Reflections from the Center - Celebrating 40 Years!
Mary Dillard, Mercy Center Director
Date: July 15
Time: 11AM - 12PM
Price: FREE
Join us as we close out our week-long retreat together and celebrate Mercy Center's 40th Anniversary!
MORNING SESSIONS 9AM-12PM (M-TH), 8:30AM-9:30AM (F)
Please choose one morning workshop for the entire week.
Remembering What You Never Knew: Discovering Your Ancestral Legacies
Workshop with Lunch: $275
Workshop with Meals & Overnight Stays: $900
For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed 4,094 ancestors over the last 400 years. Think for a moment – How many struggles? How many battles? How many difficulties? How much sadness? How much happiness? How many love stories? How many expressions of hope for the future? – did your ancestors undergo for you to exist in this present moment?
Like the double helix of DNA, history, and genealogy gives us our genetic, sociological, psychological, and spiritual identities. Lived experiences (genealogy) and the reflection on those experiences (history) shape a double helix.
This workshop uses the genogram to connect the stories between these spiral ladders. An annotated family tree, the genogram reveals physical, emotional, spiritual, and vocational hereditary patterns. These patterns form relationships and identify how family history is connected to the larger historical narrative.
“History belongs to the intercessors – those who believe and pray the future into being.” Walter Wink. Intercessory prayer can heal the past so the future can flourish. Using the genogram as a discernment tool shows us what and how to pray.
In preparation for this workshop, identifying at least three generations of your family members, ancestors, or descendants, will be beneficial.
Rev. Dr. Paula Owens Parker
Presenter
Rev. Dr. Paula Owens Parker is the program associate for The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, VA, and the senior program developer of Roots Matter LLC. Dr. Parker is the creator of RAPHA: A Course in Contemplative Healing Prayer, a spiritual director, and a certified facilitator of Emotional Emancipation Circles (EEC), originated by the Community Healing Network.
Dr. Parker holds a BA in Sociology from Fisk University, an M.Div. from Union Presbyterian Seminary, and a D.Min. from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She is an advisory board member of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network and a presenter for the North Carolina Institute for Spiritual Direction and Formation.
Dr. Parker is the author of Roots Matter: Healing History, Honoring Heritage, Renewing Hope (2016) which recognizes the impact of generational trauma in the African American community. She has contributed articles to Healing Line, Christian Century and Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology and chapters in Kaleidoscope: Broadening the Palette in the Art of Spiritual Direction (2019) and Walking through the Valley: Womanist Explorations in the Spirit of Katie Geneva Cannon. (forthcoming 2022)
Spiritual Conversations with Children
Workshop with Lunch: $275
Workshop with Meals & Overnight Stays: $900
Participants will explore what it looks like to host spiritual conversations with children. We will wade into the waters of children’s spirituality and their unique ways of connecting with the Holy. We will consider the various dimensions of the person and how that impacts the spiritual lives of children. We will engage in intentional child-like spiritual practices that are natural to children and explore spiritual listening skills that meet children where they are in their own life with God.
Lacy Finn Borgo, DMin
Spiritual Director, Presenter
Lacy Finn Borgo, DMin, teaches and provides spiritual direction for various organizations including the Renovaré Institute, Mercy Center, Burlingame, and The Companioning Center. Lacy has a spiritual direction and supervision of spiritual directors ministry, and provides spiritual direction for children at Haven House, a transitional housing facility for families without homes. Her most recent book is Spiritual Conversation with Children: Listening to God Together. Her children’s book All Will Be Well will be released October 2022. See her website GoodDirtMinistries.org for a list of her other publications. She is a member of the Renovaré ministry team. She holds a DMin. from George Fox Evangelical Seminary and is a graduate of the Renovaré Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation. She has a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from Portland Seminary. Her supervision training is from the Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA. Lacy lives on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains and worships with a local Quaker Meeting.
Levanté 1 Video Retreat
Workshop with Lunch: $500
Workshop with Meals & Overnight Stays: $1000
Michael Fish, OSB Cam
Presenter
Levanté 1, the first of Michael Fish’s fascinating new retreat series, is designed to help us recognize the opportunities for personal growth that are often hidden within everyday experiences. With each video session, he provides a springboard inviting fresh perspectives on life’s challenges and rewards.
Born of Michael’s experiences during his arduous and eventful fifth Camino across Spain, Levanté 1 focuses on how simple everyday events hold valuable lessons for living life in the “now.” Each session, each day, offers a separate, distinct experience that can reveal simple, easily overlooked opportunities for us to live more fully in the present and in the presence of the Divine. Amazing and unpredictable, the Levanté journey provided a wealth of wonderful opportunities to see what God can teach us about each and every life experience. Michael uses his remarkable gift of storytelling and metaphor to show us how these experiences can hold the key to opening our hearts to a wider view of our relationship with ourselves, our families and the world around us.
AFTERNOON SESSIONS 3PM-6PM (M-TH), 9:45AM-10:45AM (F)
Please choose one afternoon session for the entire week.
Spirituality and Social Justice
Workshop with Dinner: $275
Workshop with Meals & Overnight Stays: $900
In this workshop we will explore the deep connections between spiritual life and action “out” in the world. We will interrogate the idea of a gap between “inside” and “outside,” explore ways to ground our activism in love and faith, and discern our personal paths toward work for social justice.
Rabbi Amy Eilberg
Presenter
Rabbi Amy Eilberg is the first woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She serves as a spiritual director, peace and justice educator, and teacher of Mussar (a classical Jewish system of spiritual development). She recently served as the Coordinator of Jewish Engagement for Faith in Action Bay Area, a multi-faith, multi-racial social justice organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her current communal work includes leadership positions with the Racial Justice Subcommittee of the Conservative Movement, Congregation Etz Chayim Anti-Racism Impact Team, Islamic Networks Group and Sisterhood of Salaam/Shalom. Her book, From Enemy to Friend: Jewish Wisdom and the Pursuit of Peace, was published by Orbis Books in March 2014. She received her Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in 2016. She is a loving wife and mother and the exuberant grandmother of two beautiful little boys.
Exploring Your Visual Voice With Abstract Art
Workshop with Dinner: $275
Workshop with Meals & Overnight Stays: $900
In this workshop we will explore the elements of design: lines, shapes, colors and composition as an exercise in discovering how God speaks to us through creativity. We will move from what we think we know…to chaos…back to order. The emphasis is on the process, not the end product, but you may surprise yourself with a masterpiece! No experience is necessary.
Jen Norton
Presenter
Jen Norton is an award-winning artist and author who creates colorful work inspired by her Catholic faith. Her paintings represent our ancient traditions in a joyful, accessible style suited to both liturgy and home.
Jen graduated rom Santa Clara University with a degree in Fine Art and a business minor and worked as a Graphic Designer in the high-tech arena for a decade before pursuing her art full-time. Painfully shy as a child, Jen was unable to communicate with anyone outside her family except through drawing. Visual language was her first language and she never lost her passion for its ability to communicate her emotion. The process of painting helps her connect more deeply in her own prayer life.
Jen is the author of “Surrender All: An Illuminated Journal Retreat through the Stations of the Cross” by Ave Maria Press.
OPTIONAL EVENTS 7PM – 8:30PM
Taizé Prayer
Date: July 12
FREE
Experience our Taizé prayer service in-person! Mercy Center’s Taizé prayer service is usually offered on the first Friday of every month in-person in the Chapel and online. It is now available to Summer at the Center participants!
Yoga
Date: July 11 & July 13
One Session for $25
Both Sessions for $50
Gentle, slow-paced yoga classes designed to relieve stress, improve flexibility, and build strength through mindful movements. The pace will be meditative and emphasize peace and calm in your mind and body.
WEEK 1 SCHEDULE – BUILD YOUR OWN RETREAT!
SPANISH ONLY CONCURRENT EVENTS
