Open yourself up to the beauty and radiance that can be found in our everyday lives, and even in our brokenness. Six expertly-crafted, evocative, and soul-stirring presentations by Mark Burrows.
Mark Burrows: How the Light Gets In retreat
$333.00
Description
Rev. Dr. Mark Burrows, PhD: How the Light Gets In: Wisdom for Flourishing In Our Broken World Retreat, Jan 19-21, 2024
(five retreat presentation sessions)
also includes recording of Radiance In the Ordinary: Discovering Abundance When We Need It Most, Jan 18, 2024
(Mark Burrows’ presentation on opening evening of retreat)
How the Light Gets In: Wisdom for Flourishing in Our Broken World Retreat 
Our lives are made for thriving, but our circumstances often work against this. To flourish calls for radical wisdom, the sort that “re-minds” us of who we are. Can you imagine how light might shine “out of the darkness?” How do we come to glimpse the inner radiance we (and others) carry in our brokenness? What might this wisdom mean for how we learn to flourish from day to day, given the anguish and suffering that define our times?
We’ll explore two medieval visionaries — Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich — who help us understand how the “cracks” open us to an inner radiance. And we’ll draw on a chorus of contemporary poets to elucidate that wisdom, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Rosemerry Trommer, Wendell Berry, and Julia B. Levine. We’ll also draw on the musical and visual arts to help us open ourselves to the power of that inner light which “the darkness [has] not overcome.”
Radiance In the Ordinary: Discovering Abundance When We Need It Most
“We eat bread, but we live from radiance.” Hilde Domin
Beauty is an abundance in the midst of our lives; it gestures toward wholeness among the brokenness we experience. It is the gift present, if often hidden, in the most ordinary of moments. Drawing on poets and artists, we will explore how our experience of beauty holds the power to awaken us to the radiance we live from as found in our everyday lives. This evening talk points to how our awakening to beauty can lead us to see things “whole” in ways that inspire and encourage us to flourish in our lives.
After you complete your registration, you will receive an email which will contain a private link to a playlist with six recordings from this retreat on The Well’s YouTube channel. Out of consideration for the retreat director and for The Well’s financial viability, please refrain from sharing these recordings with others.
Mark Burrows is well-known at The Well for programs he has offered over the last decade. Teacher and scholar, poet and translator of German poetry, his work explores the field of Christian spirituality and connects the ancient wisdom of the mystics with modern life.
Ordained in the United Church of Christ (USA), he taught in several divinity schools in the US and Germany before turning his focus entirely to writing and retreat leadership in 2020. Recent books include The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin (2023), and, with Jon M. Sweeney, Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light: Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way (2023).
