May 7, 2008
Monastic Practices for Modern Christians
Posted by jdodson under Christianity, Discipleship, Prayer, Spirituality | Tags: emery house, laity lodge, society of st john the evangelist, spiritual retreat |Over the years I have found personal retreat from they regular place and patterns of life critical for my spiritually sanity. Some of my sweetest retreats were when I lived in Boston, where I would retreat to Emery House, a modern monastary of the order of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. (Thanks to Steve Macchia for turning me onto Emery House!) These Episcopal brothers have taken vows of poverty, service, and silence, offering their housing and acreage for personal retreats. I will never forget some of the soul-renewing times spent there.
Now that I am in Austin, Texas I have been looking for a new location for retreat…and may have found it at Laity Lodge. LL specializes in retreats, offering a whole range of them, from educational to recreational. They have recently hosted speakers such as N.T. Wright, Marva Dawn, and Gordon Macdonald. I am hoping to win a contest so that I can check out LL firsthand.
May 8, 2008 at 6:16 am
[...] Monastic Practices for Modern Christians by J. Dodson describes a place where he used to retreat when he lived in Boston. Now that he’s in Austin he’s looking for someplace similar. Anyone got any ideas for him? [...]
May 8, 2008 at 8:32 am
Came over through Chris Cree’s blog. I would love to hear about some of those Boston times. (Being an East Coaster myself!)
May 10, 2008 at 5:42 am
The Emery house sounds interesting. You might want to check out the retreats Gordon Atkinson is doing in San Antonio this summer.
Sorry you didn’t win, but we hope to do this again in the future!
May 14, 2008 at 7:08 am
[...] Monastic Practices for Modern Christians by J. Dodson [...]