On Retreat

"I go on a retreat at every opportunity," said Presbyterian Ted Aller of Los Angeles last week, "and when I come home, my wife says I'm fit to live with, for a few months." Design Engineer Aller represents a powerful ground swell in U.S. Protestantism--the practice of making religious retreats.

To other generations of Protestants the idea might have smacked of popery or unhealthy mysticism. The withdrawal of small groups for meditation, prayer and spiritual study used to be a distinctive practice of other religions, notably Roman Catholicism and Buddhism. Today, Protestant retreat houses are multiplying. Retreats range from one-day spiritual refreshers to week-long programs modeled on a monastic rule.

Get Another Name. Among Protestants, the EPISCOPALIANS have been in the field longest, and their retreats tend to be more ascetic than those of other denominations. Near Brighton, Mich, the Episcopal Church supports a training center called Parishfield (capacity: 35), whose retreat schedule is typical of that in many Episcopalian retreat houses. Rising is at 6:30, chapel service at 7, breakfast at 7:30. The rule of silence is maintained until 8, when members of the community assist in cleaning rooms, washing dishes, etc. Group Bible study is at 9, followed by discussion of the Biblical texts at 9:30. At 10:30 there is a coffee break. From ii to lunchtime (12:30) members do manual labor. From 1 to 4 is free time--recreation, meditation, prayer. An afternoon discussion period lasts from 4 to 6, followed by supper. There is an evening discussion at 7:30, and the day ends with evening prayer service at 9. The rule of silence is observed from the end of prayer until the next morning.

At St. Dorothy's Rest north of San Francisco, run by the Sisters of the Transfiguration, last week's weekend retreat consisted of 30 men--two schoolteachers, one attorney, two retired, and 25 businessmen. Retreatants maintain silence except for a member selected to read aloud during meals and for private conferences with the retreat conductor. Members are encouraged to read such works as The Imitation of Christ, Evelyn Underbill's Worship, T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. "It seems to me," says Canon Eric Montezambert, "that men are more deeply interested in retreats than women."

In the Los Angeles area PRESBYTERIANS are operating two retreat houses. "Sky Forest" is a large redwood lodge in the San Bernardino Mountains, built for his private use by the late oilman and philanthropist Herbert C. Wylie and donated to the Presbyterians. The lodge sleeps 32 people and is used 46 times a year for retreats from Friday evening through Sunday noon which emphasize "reflection periods" and Bible study. "Mar Casa" is a white-shingled, two-story building on Balboa Island, built for the Pasadena Presbyterian Church in World War I for Christian education work, but now used for retreats.

Says Layman James D. Nesbitt Jr., director of men's work for the Los Angeles Presbytery: "Two or three churches have reported prayer groups formed spontaneously by returned retreatants. We ought to get another name for these things--they're not retreats, but advances. We stress the three Rs--re-creation, re-search and rededication. But there's no fasting. Presbyterians wouldn't sit still for that."

Listening to God. Almost all denominational groups are making some provision for the growing interest in retreats. METHODISTS at "Rolling Ridge," North

Andover, Mass., hold retreats for young people's groups as well as laymen. The routine varies as to group, but silence is generally observed between 9 in the evening and 7 in the morning. There are worship services twice daily and a period of physical exercise--either physical training or manual labor, such as chopping trees. The CONGREGATIONALISTS' largest single church, the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles (membership: 5,000), has just bought a 260-acre tract of land on which it is planning to build a retreat house.

Nondenominational retreat centers usually begin under the auspices of a specific group. The two best known are Pennsylvania's Pendle Hill, founded by the QUAKERS, and Kirkridge, founded by a Presbyterian. Kirkridge, some 60 miles from Scranton, Pa., arranges retreats for specific groups and provides a leader, but permits outside groups to bring their own. A group of 27 men and women from Asbury Methodist Church in Rochester just completed a retreat at Kirkridge with their own minister. Kirkridge is also the center of an order of both men and women, lay and clergy, who observe a dis ciplined rule in their daily lives formulated by Kirkridge's founder, Presbyterian Minister John Oliver Nelson of Yale Divinity School. Among the members' obligations: to say certain prayers at certain times each day, to read the Bible daily according to a certain order, to tithe, to make regular retreats.

The most original retreat house in the U.S. is still abuilding--the personal project of stout, ruddy Sister Teresa, a onetime Angelican nun, now a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, who is cheerfully manhandling cinder ' blocks and mortar to build a chapel, library and 20 cells on a scrubby hill just north of Dallas. Retreatants of all faiths are welcome. "There are no rules for retreatants except absolute silence," says Sister Teresa. "We emphasize that they should come here to listen to God. Very few people know how to do that. They think of prayer as talking to God, presenting their problems to him. That is a childish idea that most people have failed to outgrow. Listening to God is very gratifying. We can do that here."

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