Saturday, June 12, 2010 10:15 AM–2:30 PM
Listening, Hearing, and Living with Margaret Guenther
Margaret Guenther
How do we make choices that bring balance to lives that have so many demands? How can we navigate the pushes and pulls of daily living with a deep serenity rooted in the Holy? What will we use to guide us along our shared journey?
Join noted author, retreat leader, and lecturer Margaret Guenther for this exploration of the Benedictine approach to life balance that infuses practical living with prayer, study, renewal, work, and hospitality. Learn to experiencethe Rule of Saint Benedict as a foundation for crafting a life way that sets intention, guides choices, embraces hospitality, and assures time for the truly essential aspects of life amidst the shallows of contemporary culture. Discover how daily rhythms we may already embrace can be set into frameworks of intention that reorient life, center us in the Holy, and bring refreshing balance to life in sometimes less than balanced world.
About the Listening, Hearing, and Living series
These sessions invite us to engage the evergreen way of balance in a learning and experiential dialogue with scholars, leaders, and active contemplatives steeped in the Benedictine tradition. Join us as we explore how to more intentionally bring balance and reconciliation into our daily lives.
Through lectures and conversations with Benedictine leaders we deepen our understanding of the core practices of prayer, study, recreation, work, and hospitality and provide real world settings. Each interactive session offers time for prayer, reflection, and shared community. All are welcome to attend any of the sessions held in Perry Auditorium.
Here we set our intention to listen for the ancient monastic rhythms that model balanced, harmonious living. We still ourselves in prayer, silence, and reflection to hear deep wisdom for our lives— our families, our relationships, our work. With the support and encouragement of shared communities of intention we begin again to live lives that embrace balance and foster renewal and reconciliation. We listen, we hear, we live.
Order of the Day
10 am Gather in Perry Auditorium, 7th Floor Tower
10:15–10:45 am
Welcoming, Prayer, and Setting of Intention
10:45 am–12:45 pm
Crafting a Rule of Life for Today, with Margaret
12:45–1 pm
Reflections with Margaret
1 pm
Release with Blessing
To more richly experience the fellowship and hospitality along the Benedictine way, plan to stay for an optional brown bag meal from 1:15 to 2:30 pm. Bring a lunch to share or you can pick one up in the Cathedral Store.
1:15–2:15 pm
Hospitality (optional)
Shared Meal: Brown bag lunch and facilitated conversation with Margaret Guenther
About Margaret Guenther
Margaret is a noted retreat leader and lecturer. She is the author of several books, including Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction, Toward Holy Ground: Spiritual Directions for the Second Half of Life, and The Practice of Prayer. Margaret is also author of At Home in the World: A Rule for the Rest of Us which is being used by Companion Candidates in The Community of Reconciliation to assist in writing their Rule of Life.
Margaret holds the A.B. and M.A. from the University of Kansas, a Ph.D. from Radcliffe College and an M.Div. from General Theological Seminary. Margaret is Professor Emerita of Ascetical Theology at General Theological Seminary where she served for many years as director of the Center for Christian Spirituality.