We humans tend to have an uneasy relationship with the dark. We fear it, avoid it, racialize it. But the season of Advent invites us to receive darkness as a divine gift. Beautiful things—things worth waiting for—happen in shadow, dormancy, and night. Next spring's seeds break open in dark winter soil. God's Spirit hovers over dark water, preparing to create worlds. A holy child grows in the soft darkness of the womb. During this weekend retreat, we will reflect on the ways God meets, loves, challenges, and heals us in the sacred darkness. Through conversation, silence, journaling, art, prayer, music, and more, we will seek the One who seeks and finds us in the dark.

​

Dates: Friday, December 4–Sunday, December 6

Meals: Friday dinner through Sunday breakfast

Leadership: The Revs. Debie Thomas, Stephen Hassett, and AnnaMarie Hoos

The Rev. Debie Thomas is the author of Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories and A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity. She is a recent graduate from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and serves as a curate at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, California. Debie and her husband have two grown children and live in Scotts Valley, CA.