Posted 935 days ago
What is the Celtic Prayer Retreat Center?
After a trip to Iona in 1992, Tom and Christine have been dreaming of creating a Celtic Prayer Retreat Center. The following is from an article Tom wrote:
"Since then, Christine and I have read everything we can find on Celtic Christian faith, Celtic spirituality and its history....We find a growing interest in Celtic Christian spirituality in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.
"We are finding a number of American believers who are also trying to find their way home to a spirituality that has the potential to touch every aspect of life, contains a love of creation, compassion for those at the margins, and is alive with jubilation. My wife and I want to share this treasure with others and help them find their way home too. More than that, we want to create a place where people can come to deepen their faith, develop their spiritual disciplines and discover their Christian calling for stewardship of all of their lives and caring for God's creation.
"Our dream is to construct a Celtic Christian prayer retreat center. It will consist of a modest group of four residential dwellings on 40 acres of land we own in Washington. We want to create a place that captures the spirit of a 6th century Celtic monastery. We want to construct three circular medium sized dwellings, one larger dwelling for common meetings, and a high tower, facing the Olympic and Cascade mountains, as a place of prayer.
"In all that we do, we want to reflect a Celtic love of both Creator and creation. Therefore this will be a highly self-reliant community with its own well, garden, orchard and alternative energy system, modeling a form of creation care through designing a model of sustainable cooperative living.
"We envision this small community composed of three couples seeking to reflect something of the spirit of those early Celtic monasteries in their common life through living simple, celebrative lives and a vital spirituality."
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Reader Comments
I would be very interested in knowing more about the celtic retreat center. 5/15/2009
Laura Slavin » 441 days ago » Link
Your message hits the heart as we have been given a vision of a Celtic Monastic community comprised of laity, brothers, sisters and priests.
We would plan on much the same line of thought as you have outlined here. We are starting from scratch as we do not even own any land and will depend on donations. However, as I said in my email to you, we do not believe in miracles – we depend on them.
May God Richly Bless,
Father Chris
Father Christopher Laine » 263 days ago » Link
Tom, this sounds awesome. I was talking to Jason Stirnaman here in KC at a home Bible study and told him about my interest in cohousing. To my surprise, Jason and numerous others at our home interjected that they were interested too! Jason told me of the Mustard Seed House project in Seattle. I had already read about Baritmaeus. Is your Celtic Retreat Center up and functioning yet. Also, what is the difference between your project and the Bartimaeus project?
Thanks and God bless you,
Doug McFarland
Overland Park, Kansas
Doug McFarland » 625 days ago » Link