Summer 2019

The past few months have been a time of challenges for us at the Hermitage, as well as challenges for our country and for the world at large. Challenges are everywhere. How do we respond? Or do we perhaps just react? Spring 2022 Newsletter in PDF

TAKING TIME What a great relief it was to be away from the responsibilities, from the nearly constant demands on my time and attention. I was just sitting. Just being. Just quietly grateful for the loveliness of God’s creation, for the priceless gift of quiet, of time, of empty space. Fall 2023 Newsletter (1.1 MB)

I was raised Protestant, in the United Church of Christ, but in high school I met a teacher who lent me a biography of St. Teresa of Avila. It was love at first sight, and I knew what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” But it wasn’t that easy! Not only was I…

For some time now, during my morning hour for prayer and lectio, I sit and wait, in emptiness. Perhaps idleness? I don’t know. And yet it doesn’t feel ‘dry.’ Fall 2025 Newsletter in PDF (1.5MB)

SILENCE: Resistance and Refuge We are always aware of noise around us, sometimes even in a place like the Hermitage. But when we do silence those cell phones, turn off the gadgets, and unplug ourselves—at least temporarily—from the noise and commotion, what do we find? Fall 2019 Newsletter in PDF format (1MB)

STILL PRAYING What happens to us during our prayer time after we’ve been praying, day in and day out, for years? Perhaps we get tired. Or bored. Or just plain distracted, especially if we’re going through a busy time in our lives. If this happens to us—and it happens to all of us at some…