The gift of retreat

Lakeside view, St Julian's Community Coolham, Vintage Postcard Ltd Edition

The first time I ever went on a retreat was in October 1989, when I was 27. It wasn’t a guided retreat; I simply fancied doing one myself, so took myself off to St Julian’s Community in West Sussex. Back then St Julian’s was run by an Anglican lay community. In 2000, the Community closed and the house was taken over by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel – it operated a few years more with a new name, St Cuthman's, but alas, that came to an end too.

I’ve stayed in many retreat centres, including monasteries. They’re all special in their different ways. But my memories of St Julian’s are particularly special. I can recall the feeling of peace that washed over me as I drove up to the house on a chilly October night, the wind rushing in the trees. The peace stayed with me for my entire stay. Meals were conducted in silence, and the home-cooked food was delicious.

I went to my first Compline service at St Julian’s. The chapel had hay strewn on the floor, making it feel like a stable in a nativity play. The big plain glass window behind the simple altar looked out on a corner of the lake – in spring, the ground would be smothered in primroses. During Compline, dozens of tealights burned along the windowsills. The sweet smell of hay, the little golden flames flickering in the night, the feeling of utter peace and serenity, the intimate beauty of the Compline liturgy, the breathing silence … it was almost overwhelming.

I wrote a poem that weekend. A few months earlier, I’d had an affair of the heart. Not a full-blown affair – I AM a Christian! – but … well, it was intense, and something of a rite of passage. In my poem, I expressed longing and loss, weaving those feelings with the awareness of God’s love and forgiveness. At St Julian’s I was able to reconcile those two strong impulses – our powerful desire for human love, and the deep desire for God’s love, which is the source of all love and meaning.

That was one of the gifts St Julian’s gave me. It wasn’t a writer’s retreat, but it released my creativity, as well as being a deeply healing experience.

I know that many ACW members have attended writers’ retreats, run them and organised them, eg the Kingdom Writers’ Retreat in North Wales, Out of the Box.

I thank God for these and the different kinds of retreats we’ve been blessed by.

And hopefully all of us can create a kind of retreat in our own homes, a place where we can retire to, and write, where God can meet with us, and the Spirit release our creativity.

N.B. A collection of papers about the St Julian’s Community, Coolham, including material about the life of the founder, missionary Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), is now in the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide (CCCW) Archive. The life and witness of the Community, especially as they challenged the authorities upholding apartheid in South Africa, makes for fascinating reading.

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I’m an Anglican lay minister and Administrator for education and learning at the United Reformed Church, Church House, London. I wrote a devotional for the anthology Light for the Writer’s Soul, published by Media Associates International, and my short story ‘Magnificat’ appears in the ACW anthology Merry Christmas Everyone.