Category: News

With Labor Day weekend just days away, schools soon in session, and the calendar flipping to September, summer may be coming to a close, but Rolling Ridge is open and looking forward to a full fall schedule.  With online and onsite opportunities on the calendar, the Ridge seeks to care for your spiritual needs amid the growing uncertainties of the pandemic.

ONLINE, our Divine Friendships series on the Christian contemplative classics continues on Monday, September 13th as we look at the Cloud of Unknowing, an anonymous work of Christian mysticism from the latter half of the 1300s. The book advises that oneness with God cannot be obtained by knowledge and intellect, but by meeting God in the realm of “unknowing”, a simple but intense contemplation in a “cloud of forgetting” and a “dart of longing love” from the heart for God. Intrigued?  We invite you to step into the Unknowing.

Also ONLINE, our Voices and Stories series continues on Wednesday, September 15th as we kick-off National Hispanic Heritage Month and look at the history of this celebration which began as a week in 1966 and expanded to a month in 1988.  We will describe the difference between “Hispanic” and “Latinx”, and will be joined by Walter Mena, Director of the Merrimack Valley Project, who will share about his own immigration story from El Salvador, along with the diversity and immigration issues of the Latinx community in the Merrimack Valley today.

ONSITE, Rolling Ridge is offering three in-person Monday day retreats this month to help us find new spiritual grounding as we make sense of the past year.  Consider adding an overnight package to make it a personal retreat at the Ridge.

We begin our September “Day Together” series on Monday, September 8th, Singing and Dancing the Holy, with Stephanie Rutt as we step light to journey deep and embody the sacred mantra practices from across faith traditions. Using simple circle movements, we’ll join together, hand in hand, breath by breath, footstep by footstep to journey to the center of the holy.

On Monday, September 13th, we seek to mindfully emerge from a year of change by Understanding Impermanence with Marie Radzinsky.  Our emotions have been on a roller coaster over the past year and a half.  As we face anger, grief and fear, our thoughts are still trying to catch up.  Using experiential participation and teachings, we will look through the lens of Mindfulness at Relationships we have either lost or have become difficult, through the Landscape of our Earth to see changes and movement always taking place, and within our bodies to witness the change also happening each moment of our life.

Finally, on Monday, September 20th, we invite you to Tune Up Your Spirit with Janet Kessenich by harmonizing your life to be in sync and flow. Through sound healing, self-exploration, group discussion, and musical experiences, you will deepen your connection with your soul and be inspired to live a more insightful, meaningful, and satisfying life, centered in your heart and reflecting your highest meaning and purpose in an emerging post-pandemic world.

With all that we’ve been through, and all that we continue to go through, our spirits are taking a beating.  Take some time this month to recharge, to reset, to renew. 

And don’t forget, our Season of Creation Sunday Vespers begin THIS SUNDAY, September 5th.

More ONLINE and a few ONSITE opportunities are coming in October. With a new Joan Chittister book study, a dream workshop series, a women’s rites of passage program, a generous listening series, and our autumn contemplative rhythms offerings, the Ridge is creating safe and sacred spaces to prepare our souls for whatever the delta variant may bring this next season.  We are in this together.

Through these uncertain times, we continue to be thankful for your prayers and support.  Please consider a September gift to offset our monthly expenses at the Ridge as the growing fears of the pandemic again stretch our financial sustainability.  We appreciate your donation.  Every little bit helps.  Thank you.

For some, life after COVID has been like resetting a circuit breaker.  Click a switch and it is back to normal.  For others, the pandemic was a life-shattering game changer surfacing questions of why? Where?  What’s next?  No matter where you may be post-COVID, Rolling Ridge is here to help you discern the way forward with three opportunities to strengthen your spiritual life.

We invite you to join us ONLINE on Tuesday, July 27th for “Who Said That? Understanding Discernment.”  Sometimes it is difficult to hear the voice of the Spirit. Through contemplation, this workshop will help you see, hear and feel ‘signs’ that speak to our inner selves and learn to recognize who is speaking, whether our own ego or the “voice” of God.  If you are struggling with spiritual “hard of hearing,” we encourage you to take an extended lunch and join us for this 2 hour online event.

If you are looking for a more personal deep dive into discernment, we invite you to join us for a three-part ONLINE workshop this fall to consider the questions involved with what we are being called to do and to be.  “Discerning: Responding through our Vital Connections” will meet Thursday evenings, October 7, October 14, and November 4 from 6:30-8:30 pm.   Each session will address one of the vital connections involved that allow us to discern and respond to life’s questions and connect us in our personal discovery.  This series also introduces our “Rolling Ridge way” of living a contemplative life and being present to the Divine gift within and without. It’s all about being present to our connections.

Our connections are rooted in the spiritual life, and as Sister Joan Chittister will address THIS SUNDAY, July 18th, the “Spiritual Life: It’s all about relationships.”  There is still time to register for this LIVE hybrid event from 2:00 to 4:30 pm with optional dinner and fellowship.  A Benedictine sister and one of the most influential religious and social leaders of our time, Sister Joan will be offering a light to guide us through this time of contradictory values and upheavals in every major institution and within the hearts of people.  Join us ONSITE at Rolling Ridge and watch the livestream in community, and enjoy small group discussion, private reflection, and optional dinner afterwards. If you are not able to join us in-person, you are invited to watch the presentation ONLINE at home followed by small group sharing with our online Ridge community. Registration closes Friday at 2pm.

Relationships are so key to help us emerge from the pandemic and discern our call.  We hope that you will connect with Rolling Ridge as we move forward as a community into this emerging post-pandemic future.

Check out our website for other upcoming opportunities to support you in your journey.

Last month, Rolling Ridge launched Divine Friendships, a new monthly series exploring Christian contemplative and devotional classics. This series title draws its inspiration from a quote by the great 16th century Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila, who described contemplative prayer as “a close sharing between friends”. 

From the Christian perspective, divine friendships manifest themselves in at least three ways. The first is friendship within God expressed in the Holy Trinity. This is the original divine friendship out of which all the others flow. The second is friendship between God and the individual human person. The third is friendship between and among human persons united to each other through the Holy Spirit.

On Monday evening, July 12th, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, we will be exploring The Imitation of Christ, perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional book after the Bible, written by Thomas à Kempis.  A German priest who spent most of his long life in a Dutch monastery copying bibles, Thomas wrote the Imitation anonymously in the early part of the fifteenth century. The first two books counsel humility, self-denial and patient endurance as crucial to the spiritual life. The last two books take the form of an imagined conversation between Christ and the disciple focused on the contrast between the love of Jesus and the love of one’s self.

Never heard of Thomas à Kempis and the Imitation of Christ?  We invite you to join us for an insightful look as to how this Christian contemplative classic can deepen our divine friendships today.

If Thomas is not “your cup of tea”, we invite you to check out some of the other upcoming offerings at the Ridge, which include a look at the musical Hamilton, a Pray and Paddle retreat on Lake Cochichewick, and an evening featuring Sister Joan Chittister at our first in-person onsite hybrid event.

Whether through a Christian classic, a contemporary musical, an outdoor adventure, or an inspiring talk, Rolling Ridge seeks to nurture your spiritual life as you awaken to the divine friendships in you.