Join me for the fifth-annual Stillpoint Retreat, which offers participants not only spiritual practices to help discover the divine in the everyday but the time and space to explore and dive deep. We will dabble in a little of everything: prayer, journaling, creativity, guided meditation, music, movement, and more.

The weekend is anchored by presentations to help you refocus your spiritual lives and guidance on how to put practices into place amid everyday life. Optional yoga classes will be offered both mornings. (Bring a yoga mat if you have one!) Our annual Saturday night bonfire (weather permitting) is a favorite way to connect with our growing Stillpoint community. A period of silence will be observed in the early mornings and through breakfast, providing another beautiful way to connect with the still, small voice of the Spirit.

My first experience of PLC was 15 years ago as a participant in the Merton in the Mountains silent retreat led by the beloved Walt Chura. Expect to find plenty of Merton (and quite a bit of Walt) in my Stillpoint retreat experience.

Cost: $205, all inclusive. You’ll get rustic accommodations at the always-beautiful Pyramid Life Center with its mountains and lake, island and waterfall. It’s a beautiful gem in the lower Adirondack Mountains, the kind of place you never want to leave and you always want to come back to. In addition, that price includes homemade meals, kayaking or canoeing, swimming (if it’s warm), and all retreat activities — from daily talks and reflections and optional daily yoga sessions to journaling and collage-as-prayer. Plenty of free time is built into the schedule for doing your own thing, in solitude or with a retreat friend.

Information and registration HERE.

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@marydtp518

#jellyfish #letgo #gowiththeflow

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To be honest, I almost skipped the overnight trip to Pyramid Life Center in Paradox, N.Y., because I thought maybe I should just stay home and take care of the responsibilities in front of me. But my better angels won out, and I packed my life vest and hiking boots and headed north. As soon as I turned onto the long road that cuts through the woods and leads to the lake, my shoulders relaxed and I said (out loud), “Home.” Because this sacred spot that has become a regular destination when I’m in need of spiritual renewal—and where I lead a retreat every September—really does feel like a soul home, a thin place where God’s presence is palpable.

At a time when the news coming at us from every corner of our country and world is beginning to cause a collective sense of hopelessness (at least based on conversations I’m having), stepping outside our routine can help break that cycle and remind us that no matter what is happening around us, there is always beauty to be found.

Oftentimes, all that’s required to make that shift is intentional silence—no kayak or lake required. It can be a little more challenging to do that right where we are, but it’s worth the effort. What does it entail? Simply finding a quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed, and being willing to silence your phone, turn off the TV, and go inward. If you can add a little natural beauty—your backyard, a pocket park, even a beautiful view spied at 55 MPH from a car window—all the better.

When I lived in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx many years ago, I found so much joy in the beautiful maple tree just beyond the fire escape outside my window. Today it’s the towering oaks in my backyard in upstate New York that keep me anchored and aware. Find a spot that speaks to you.

What do you do once you get there? You wait for the still, small voice, just as Elijah did (1Kings 19:12). It can be a challenge at first, so start with just a few minutes at a time. If it suits you, read some Scripture and contemplate a line that speaks to you (known as lectio divina), but don’t be afraid to do absolutely nothing. You’ll be surprised how healing it can be.

Years ago, I wrote about my early forays into this sort of meditative prayer, and an editor slapped a headline on it using the term “navel-gazing.” It was meant to be derogatory, and it served as a reminder (at least to me) that too many people out there see silence and self-reflection as a waste of time or self-indulgent; it is anything but.

It is only when we sit face-to-face with God in silence—gazing into our own hearts (not our navels)—that Spirit will speak to us. If we’re always talking, running, doing, there’s nowhere for God to get a word in edgewise. But, when we stop all the doing and take time to just be, whether it’s in the middle of a quiet lake or from our seat on a crowded commuter train, God speaks, beauty surfaces, and we are found.

Mary will lead the next Stillpoint retreat at Pyramid Life Center Sept. 9-11, 2022. For more information, visit the Events page.

This column originally appeared in the July 1, 2022, issue of Catholic New York. Copyright Mary DeTurris Poust, 2022.

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I think it’s important to share that with you if only to remind you that it’s okay if you stray off the path or pull into a rest stop for a few days. When you’re ready, dust yourself off and begin again. The only thing you should try to continue to do no matter what else is going on is your gratitude journal. But always, always continue to be kind and gentle with yourself no matter how this journey is going for you.

The next thing on the list I outlined when we were on the cusp of this revolution-not-resolution transformation journey was a connection with nature. Can you find a spot where you can either see or be in nature each day? Do you have a chair by a window where you can see birds or squirrels? Do you have a path nearby or a quiet street where you can take short walks (or long walks if that’s your thing)? Nature has a way to heal us, connect us, make us kinder.

When pandemic first hit last March and most of us were trapped in our homes, I took to working in the armchair in our family room where I can watch the goings on in our backyard, in particular the bird feeder. I became a bit obsessed with bird watching. I downloaded apps to track the varieties I could identify; I kept a running list in the notes on my phone; I talked to them; sat outside with a camera hoping to catch them in action; found myself disappointed and rejected if our feeder was empty. I wrote a column about the way sitting at my window in pandemic changed me. You can read “Falling for Spring in a Season of Fear” HERE.

Although the initial obsession with the birds faded a bit, my newly found love for these hearty and cheerful creatures has settled into a lovely spiritual relationship. I look outside when it’s only 3 degrees and the snow is deep and marvel at the little sparrows so oblivious to the cold, flitting around looking for a snack. On the days when I take the dog for a walk, I talk to the crows sitting in the trees on our street. (Crows can remember a face, so be nice to them!) Although we are awaiting a winter storm, I just unpacked a new bird feeder and a 20-pound bag of black oil sunflower seed so that I can give the cardinals a place to eat since my current feeder doesn’t suit them. (Maybe the obsession hasn’t quite faded.)

Many of us at this time of year are dealing with cold and snow (we’re expecting 8 to 12 inches as I write this). It can be hard to love this season if we’re not skiers. It can be easy to wish away the present and long for warmer and sunnier days, green trees and sitting on the deck. But can we learn to be content, happy even, with the season we are in — the physical season of the world around us and the life season we are currently navigating day by day?

I’m currently listening to the book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. I have a feeling this is another that I will purchase in hard copy as well so I can revisit my favorite lines. As I drive through the cold and snow to get to work or the yoga studio, as I sit in my chair awaiting the next storm and knowing spring is a long way off for those of us in upstate New York, her words call me back to the here and now, reminding me to savor what is right before me, even when my teeth chatter, even when I’m worrying about the kids driving on slippery roads.

“We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how,” May writes. And that is the case for everything in our lives. We may not choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond to them. If we can begin to practice acceptance with the seasons of the year — learning to allow ourselves to feel the cold and appreciate the sharpness in our lungs, learning to accept the rain dripping down our window even when we wanted sun — it can help us learn to accept the more challenging things we encounter, not just in nature but in life itself.

Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” Good advice. When we resign ourselves — not in a defeated way but in an accepting and joyful way — we open our hearts and minds and spirits to a whole new way of seeing and being. It may start with appreciating a goldfinch at a bird feeder, but if we nurture it, it can evolve into finding joy even in our challenges, of learning to balance sorrow and joy without losing our balance or our peace in the process.

When I fell off the path briefly last week, there was the danger that I’d just stay there. In the past, I might have wallowed for weeks and in a deep self-loathing way. But little by little this journey of transformation — which is often a dance of two steps forward, one step back — has allowed me to recognize when I am sinking and make a course correction before I get too dug in. That is the gift of commitment and discipline and the willingness to begin again over and over. We are not called to perfection; we are called to practice — prayer, journaling, silence, nature, whatever helps us go deeper. Start there and then, if necessary, start again, and you will continue to move toward your true self and all the joy it holds for you.

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After months of wondering whether my retreat would be on or off due to COVID-19, I am happy to report that it is ON, and Pyramid Life Center is ready to receive guests and offer us a safe and socially distanced atmosphere. We’ve got nine 20 people signed up for this retreat so far, which means there are very few slots left in order for us to keep this gathering small and in line with health protocols. Of course, small groups make for more intimate and powerful retreats anyway, so… win-win.

Stillpoint: Creating Calm amid the Chaos will be offered Friday, Sept. 11, through Sunday, Sept. 13. It will be a weekend to nourish body, mind, and soul as we enter into the beautiful fall season at Pyramid Life Center. Check-in is at 5 p.m. on Friday; the retreat concludes at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

This retreat will focus around the theme of “meditation in motion” and will include practices to help us discover the divine in the everyday, the miracles in the mundane moments of life. Optional yoga classes will be offered for those who are interested, as well as collage-as-prayer, journaling and more. Participants can also personalize this retreat by creating prayer practices around their own interests — photography, hiking, kayaking — in the abundant free time that will be scheduled into our weekend. This will be a semi-silent retreat: silent breakfasts and silent evenings after our closing sessions. (For those who want deeper silence, there is the option to take all meals in silence.)

The cost is $150, which includes the retreat program, rustic accommodations and all meals, as well as access to kayaks, hiking trails, and plenty of Adirondack chairs for resting and daydreaming. It’s a truly beautiful physical location with a gorgeous lake, mountains, loons, herons and more. To register, click HERE and look for Stillpoint in the dropdown menu.

Pyramid Life Center is operating according to COVID-19 health requirements, with social distancing enforced through facilities. You will be screened as you enter. Don’t forget your mask and your hand sanitizer!

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I practically gasped at the enormity and clarity of the constellation’s outline, and I smiled at the familiar star pattern that has been my favorite ever since my third-grade teacher at Evans Park Elementary School showed me how to locate it—the three stars tight in a row marking Orion’s belt, making it easy to spot even on an overcast night, at least during these winter months.

What amazed me most of all that night was that I had almost missed all of that beauty, all of that splendor, not because I didn’t know what to look for, but because I simply hadn’t even bothered to lift my head and look up. So intent was I on just getting through the chore, I almost missed the magic. How often do we do that, rush headlong through something and miss the real moment, the spark of the divine right there in the everyday? And, even after we get a taste of that magic, how quickly we forget and go right back to dreading the chore, avoiding the task, averting our eyes.

A couple of months ago, I had a similar experience when our dishwasher died. Time and again, when we would hear the telltale ding of an error message, we’d re-run the cycle—sometimes four or five times in a row—in an effort to get the dishes clean without getting our hands wet. Finally, we surrendered, accepting the fact that for the foreseeable future we had no dishwasher. Dennis headed to the store to buy a drain rack so we could start doing dishes the old-fashioned way. One of our three children marveled at this strange contraption, wondering how it “worked.” Another saw me with my hands in sudsy water and asked if she might try since it looked so “fun.” I flashed back to my own young childhood, when our home had no dishwasher at all, and I was the nightly dryer of dishes, standing beside my mother begrudgingly with towel in hand.

As I soaked the dishes, up to my elbows in warmth and bubbles, looking out the kitchen window at squirrels and birds moving about the backyard, I felt…what was it? Peace. Maybe even joy. Definitely satisfaction. This long-lost simple pleasure, this chore, was, in reality, a welcome break from the chaos of life, giving me reason to pause, to stand in one place with nowhere to go and to meditatively move my hands in circles as I scrubbed the plates and pots.

Although I try almost daily to intentionally take notice of the everyday graces evident all around me as I go about my day, most of the time I’m too consumed with whatever is on my To Do list to bother to look up and take notice of the moments forming beautiful constellations against the backdrop of my life.

What chore do you trudge through impatiently each day, looking past the moment to when it will just be done? What would happen if you stopped for a minute and looked up?

This column first appeared in the Feb. 1, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

Photo by Adrian Pelletier on Unsplash

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I fell in love with Pyramid Life Center in 2008, when I attended my first silent retreat there. I went alone, with a whole lot of doubt packed into my overnight bag. But what unfolded there over the next two days was magical, and, when Sunday came, I didn’t want it to end. It’s a special place, and I’m excited to share it with you. If you’d like to read about that first visit, you can do so HERE. If you’d like a visual of where you’ll be headed, take a look at this — it’s from the very same weekend of the year in 2013. So, weather permitting, you could be in for this eyeful of gorgeous:

As for our retreat, it won’t be completely silent, but it will have some healthy doses of quiet mixed in with lots of opportunities for praying in all different ways. Here are some highlights:

— Silence in the early morning through breakfast.

— Mindfulness practice with your morning meals

— Cutting and pasting to create a spiritual collage or vision board

— Several spiritual talks…on the cravings that get in the way of our relationship with God, on weaving prayer into everyday life, on spiritual friendship, on embracing our own brokenness and learning to love ourselves as God loves us.

— Opportunities to pray together and apart in different formats

— Poetry, music, journaling, nature, creativity

— Disconnecting from email, texting, social media

The cost is $150 for the entire weekend, including the program, accommodations, meals and activities. Pyramid is a rustic retreat center, with a lovely lodge with two big screened porches, a big dining hall, a log cabin chapel, a small meditation house on the lake, a “tree house” looking out over the lake and lots of nooks and crannies for stealing some quiet time.

To register, click HERE and sign up through Pyramid’s online form. Once we have our final group, I’ll send out a supply list, but just to give you some ideas… Plan to bring a journal, scissors, a glue stick, some old magazines. If you’re a photographer, bring your camera (or your phone in airplane mode) and use it as a way to pray visually. If you draw, bring a sketch pad. Whatever gives you peace and helps you connect with God. We’ll talk more about it in the days ahead. I can’t wait to see you there

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The tipping point was a trifecta of positivity that came flooding into my life all at once: more than a few really nice emails from readers of Catholic New York; my return to regular yoga class and at least a bare-bones prayer life; and, the icing on the cake, a five-day lake vacation to Hadlock Pond in the lower Adirondack Mountains.

As I kayaked across the crystal clear water, watching a hawk circle overhead and a heron standing in watchful silence at the end of a dock a few feet away, I suddenly felt myself breathing again. I realized that I’d been holding my breath for close to a year. At least that’s how it felt. Finally, there in the silence and solitude, I felt myself exhale.

I began rhythmically praying with my breath two favorite lines from Scripture – “I am with you always, until the end of time” and “Be still and know that I am God.” As I crossed the lake in a moving meditation, I began to feel the latter quote morphing into a personalized version of that verse: Be still and know that all is God—people, animals, creation. At first it was a silent mantra, but the next thing I knew, I was saying it out loud in time with the movement of my paddle. With each repetition, I felt lighter. From there I found even higher ground, a thought that would not fade: We live in abundance. Always. Not wealth, not success, not power, but abundance. Our God is not a God of scarcity. He is a God of blessings and feasts, too much, excess.

So often we approach life from a place of lack, even if it is imagined lack. We hoard what we have, clinging tight to things we’re afraid to lose, be it a job, our youth, our possessions, even our faith. We worry there won’t be enough of whatever it is we need because we think “enough” comes only when we hit a certain level of success or saintliness. But God gives us more than enough simply for showing up to this party called life. He gives us blessings in abundance, and the thing we tend to forget is that when we stop worrying so much about what we need or what we deserve or what we want, we open up a great big space for abundance to rush in. And without even realizing it, what we need is suddenly right there before us.

St. Therese of Lisieux wrote: “I find just when I need them, certain lights…and it isn’t during my hours of prayer that these are most abundant, but rather, in the midst of my daily occupations.”

Can we begin to see abundance, sense abundance, even when we’re not on the mountaintop, or, in my case, on the lake? In the midst of our daily activities? Even in the dark valleys of struggle and strife?

It’s not easy, but what if, by some slim chance, you could let go, just a bit, and not worry about tomorrow and see the abundance in the right now. There is abundance somewhere, even if you’re in a bad place, even if you’re saddled with worry, even if it’s hidden beneath piles of bills. Stop holding on so tight and see what happens. Loosen when fear tells you to cling. Give when you might be inclined to withhold. Put a dream out into the universe and see what God does with it. And don’t forget to breathe.

This column first appeared the Aug. 4, 2016, issue of Catholic New York. 

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Fourteen years ago this month, I wrote my very first Life Lines column. It focused on my then-4-year-old son, Noah, and a summer nature program we had attended together and how in his own little way Noah was forcing me out of my comfort zone and teaching me new things about myself and the world around me.

This is what I wrote back then:

“Fish net in hand, Noah waded into the water without hesitation and caught a frog within seconds. After gently placing it in the appointed green bucket, he bounded off toward a small waterfall, slipping and sliding the whole way, wet up to his armpits—although the water was only ankle deep.

“I, on the other hand, was doing my best impersonation of a nature lover. I tentatively stepped from one wobbly stone to another, hoping to make it though the morning without putting my foot down into the murky unknown. Then Noah called out to me, in awe of some minnows that had just flashed by his leg. ‘Let’s turn over a rock,’ he said. I held my breath and stepped off my dry perch. As I bent down to help Noah move a rock aside, a bright green frog darted out and Noah squealed with delight. Before I knew it, we were both racing down the stream, water splashing around us and mud sticking to our legs.

“It’s amazing to me how my kids always seem to give me the mental shove I need when I’ve been standing in the same place for too long.”

I dug that column out of a storage bin under my bed when it came time to write this month’s column because I knew in some odd way the two were tied together. Noah, now 18, is still pushing me out of my comfort zone in all the best ways. Not that my girls don’t do the same, but Noah, my first-born, has a special knack for making me face new unknowns before I think I’m ready.

When I wrote that first column, the unknowns were wrapped up in new-mom worries about whether I was doing everything I should be doing to keep him healthy and hitting all the appropriate milestones along the way. Organic snacks and limited screen time, daily crafts and constant reading. And I remember moms of older children telling me that, despite how it felt at the time, I was in the easy years of parenthood. The teenage years would be much harder, they warned. And now, with the first of three children on the brink of young adulthood, I know what they mean.

As Noah headed off to Le Moyne College in Syracuse, I fought back tears, not because I don’t want him to be out on his own and away from home but because for the first time in my life as a parent I am no longer the one at the controls. (I realize I’m never really the one at the controls, but that’s a column for another day.)

Talk about taking a step off my safe little island into the murky unknown. Even as I sit here writing this column, I can feel the tears starting to well up as I begin to run through a mental list of all the possible “What ifs…” Noah might encounter without me around to grab onto him—literally and figuratively—and pull him back to safety.

And yet I know there are so many rocks for him to turn over, so many wonderful surprises waiting for him just out of sight, only this time I won’t get to splash through the stream alongside him. I’ll be watching from afar, wistful and a little nervous but proud and excited, knowing that every small step we took together throughout his childhood has led to the giant leap he takes into young adulthood today.

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If you look around my office prayer space or on my bedroom dresser, you’ll notice one constant: broken conch and whelk shells everywhere. Small and blue-gray, large and sun-bleached, twisting, turning, spiraling in that gorgeous and mysterious way that seashells do. Although I have one perfect channeled whelk shell that I purchased in Cape May, N.J., years ago, my prized possessions are broken shells of every shape and size because, as far as I’m concerned, they are far more beautiful than the ones that are perfectly intact and so lovely on the outside.

I love the way the brokenness lets you see inside, where the true beauty lies. There you discover the magnificent soft turns and intricate work of the Creator typically hidden by the outer shell, details so beautiful you would gasp if a sculptor had crafted them out of marble. Yet there they are, lying on the sand, trampled underfoot, washed ashore and pulled back out by the next tide along with tangled seaweed and discarded cigarette butts, or, every so often, tucked into the pocket of a hoodie by someone hoping for a sacred souvenir, a reminder that even some of God’s most beautiful creations are cracked and dulled and hobbled by the pounding surf of daily life.

I think I’m so taken with these shell fragments because they remind me of people, broken but beautiful. Even the people who look physically perfect on the outside harbor an intricate beauty and brokenness somewhere on the inside. It’s just a factor of our humanity. We don’t get through this life whole and intact; we are meant to be broken open, to expose and embrace our inner beauty.

But that’s not easy. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time looking at myself with the same gentle eyes I use to look at my collection of scarred and shattered shells. I understand in theory that “I am wonderfully made,” as Psalm 139 tells us, but translating that into an attitude that guides my daily life is a challenge. In my mind’s eye, I see only the imperfections in the creation that I am. I would be wonderfully made, if only (fill in the blank). I may believe God has an unconditional love for everyone else on the planet, but believing that about myself is, well, unbelievable.

I struggled with that concept throughout the writing of my book Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles With Food, Self-Image, and God, where I explored the ways we allow our hunger for wholeness to fuel unhealthy urges — whether for food, alcohol, shopping, gossip, sex, gambling or any other empty “vice” — that only pull us further and further away from understanding our true self and recognizing our belovedness in God’s eyes.

“Our brokenness is truly ours. Nobody else’s. Our brokenness is as unique as our chosenness and our blessedness,” writes Henri Nouwen in Life of the Beloved. “As fearsome as it may sound, as the Beloved ones, we are called to claim our unique brokenness, just as we have to claim our unique chosenness and our unique blessedness.”

Can we begin to see our brokenness as a blessing rather than a curse, a beauty mark rather than a scar? It can happen only when we fully place ourselves in God’s hands and accept once and for all that we are indeed wonderfully made, even with — or maybe because of — our flaws and weaknesses, our wrinkles and quirks, our sins and struggles. God doesn’t love us only after we are “fixed.” God loves us into being and loves us through our imperfections, patiently waiting for us to climb on board and revel in that gift. Unfortunately, we are too often caught up in the mirage of wholeness, the mistaken belief that a perfect outer shell will make us more lovable.

We are so busy spinning our wheels in an effort to become shiny and unblemished to the outside world that we miss the still, small voice urging us on from the inside, the Spirit beckoning us to stop spinning, stop judging, and rest in the arms of God exactly as we are at this moment, knowing we are loved perfectly despite our imperfections.

We are all shattered in one way or another. We are all incomplete, missing pieces here and there. But we are all beautiful. In fact, we are more beautiful because of it. Who wants polished perfection that belies the truth of what’s inside when you can have the raw power of beauty that’s broken because it has lived and loved and lost and carried on in spite of it all? Be broken and be beautiful.

This column originally appeared in the National Catholic Reporter on Feb. 11, 2014, and was based on a much earlier NSS blog post and a lifetime of collecting broken seashells. 

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