BYM Opening Retreat

Retreat leader Virginia Schurman will help us explore the meanings of the theme of the Yearly Meeting, “Nurturing the Seeds of Hope,” for our daily spiritual life and the life of our Meeting communities. There will be times for worship, reflections, and sharing. The Seed is a word that early Friends used for the Divine Presence in each of us. We will share experiences of being responsive to and nurturing that Divine Seed so that it grows in our lives and in the life of our Meeting. We will share, using gardening imagery and metaphors, about what makes our “soil” receptive, our experiences of the value of “plowing”, “fertilizing”, and “pruning”, share the spiritual practices in our lives that we have found to encourage the growth of the Divine Seed, and reflect on the “flowers and fruits” that we are called to bring forth as we grow in the life of the Spirit, a life of hope.

Virginia Schurman is a member of Gunpowder Meeting. She loves gardening and will share many helpful lessons and metaphors about the spiritual life that she has learned as she lovingly tends her plants. She has fostered the Spiritual Formation Program of the Yearly Meeting for many years and has led many retreats and workshops on nurturing the spiritual life.