"Spiritual practice has no permanent goal and is always introducing new challenges," Rabbi David Cooper has stated. Quite a number of these challenges are taken on when an individual decides to attend a contemplative retreat. Encounters with the presence, the mysteries, and the epiphanies of God are the most important goals. In this helpful and illuminating paperback, Jane Vennard describes this spiritual adventure:

"Contemplative retreats are about attending and listening and waiting for God. Contemplative retreats are about discovering stillness. We do these things while carrying on the activities of retreat. We listen and attend and wait as we chant and pray and sing and eat together. We listen and attend and wait while we walk alone, while we read, or do handwork, or watch the fire, or make our beds, or draw pictures, or write poetry, or simply do nothing. Contemplative retreats are not about accomplishing anything, getting somewhere, going home with the answers."

Vennard offers many examples of the value of contemplative retreats. The First Congregational Church of Colorado Springs, for example, has made the spiritual life of the congregation a key focus. They regularly sponsor contemplative retreats around periods of centering prayer and silence. The church also has a labyrinth and offers Taize services where singing simple refrains moves the congregants into a contemplative experience. An Adult Forum between Sunday services and film nights give people other ways to embrace their spirituality.

Jesus, Vennard points out, was a contemplative who sought times away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. "He knew that in the midst of such activity, he would not be able to give God the constant and devoted attention that nourished him to his very soul. So he went away. He withdrew. He sought out deserted places. He found ways to be silent and still in the presence of his God." Like Jesus, we need these times of renewal — and they can be "as short as a breath or as long as a month." A distinguishing mark of this kind of retreat is the spiritual practice of silence where we can drink from the cup of inner wisdom.

Most of this book is devoted to Vennard's ideas on shaping and leading contemplative retreats, based upon her own experiences. She covers group process, schedules, prayer and worship, Bible study, physical activity, guided meditation, spiritual direction, and doing nothing. In a chapter on "Fruits of Contemplation," she reveals that people have come away from these experiences with greater peace in their action and deeper love in their attitudes. Vennard concludes with her vision of the contemplative church as a transformed community.