Articles By: Cam Yates

Leading spiritual retreats is a great joy. Because most of my experience over the years has been with people on a first spiritual retreat, I am often filled with gratitude as I witness men and women discovering newfound freedom, hope, wellbeing, and intimacy with God. Spiritual retreat is a time for drawing aside from the distractions of daily life in order to become more attentive to the movement of God within and around us. Increasingly, many people seek such places of respite and renewal. But the path to the doorway of retreat is often fraught with obstacles.

Yates describes how he leads spiritual retreats, and discusses the importance of drawing aside from the distractions of daily life in order to become more attentive to God. There are many distractions in life that make us confused and inattentive to God’s voice. A retreat can be a conduit for experiencing God without the conundrum of life’s static.

For a few moments I drove alone in the car, heading south from the Benedictine monastery just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I was leading a retreat. I was on my way to purchase bread and wine for the next day’s Communion service while the retreatants were back at the monastery observing an afternoon of quiet reflection. Some were engaged in prayer walks while others were drawn to the chapel’s embracing silence, and a few strolled along the banks of the gently flowing river bordering the monastery grounds. In the quiet of the car, I began to reflect on what had brought us to this place four times over the past two years.

In part, we were here because of something I read by Sue Monk Kidd many years ago. “We seem to have focused so much on exuberant beginnings and victorious endings that we’ve forgotten about the slow, sometimes tortuous unraveling of God’s grace that takes place in the ‘middle places.’”[1] Those words were embedded in my memory from the first time I read them, yet it would be years before they would ring in my ears once again.

Several years ago, I began to feel a subtle dissatisfaction with the retreats I was leading. Dissatisfaction identified itself in questions: Had participants been able to integrate their spiritual practices with their daily lives? How had their experience affected their way of being with others? Were they aware of the Spirit’s part in life changing moments? Then Kidd’s words returned and gave new focus to my concern. I realized that a retreat leader must be careful not to play to a participant’s desire for exuberant beginnings and victorious endings. Such desire is insufficient at best and escapist at worst. I concluded that spiritual retreat must evoke a maturing spirituality that enables God’s people to live confidently in those “sometimes tortuous middle places,” but to do so means retreat leaders must be prepared to journey along with persons who have sought out the retreat experience.

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