Convocation 2024
Hope in Small Places:
Becoming People of Refugia Faith
Learn about our Creative / Contemplative Immersion Sessions
This year, our In-person Convocation will feature a host of incredible leaders for our Creative / Contemplative Immersion sessions. These sessions, offered twice during the two days of Convocation, will allow participants an opportunity to delve deeply into an experiential small group time focused on a particular topic.
Hope in the Eternal Present: A Contemplative Encounter with the Natural World
Rev. Dan Wolpert • View bio
The enormity of the climate crisis confronts our ability to sustain hope in a good and just future. In this immersion, we will drink deeply from the wells of the contemplative traditions which call us to find a hope that arises as we engage the present moment and the natural world around us. Spending time outside in a mode of deep listening, we will learn to notice the flickering of our minds away from the present and into a future which we cannot control. This practice will help us to stay grounded in the midst of a climate-changed world, will teach us to be comfortable with uncertainty and groundlessness, and therefore will allow us to move forward as powerful advocates for good, whatever may come.
Artist Advocacy
Grace Pugh Hubbard • View bio
Music is all around us all the time. Music informs and creates mood, nuance, and atmosphere. This immersive experience is open to all levels of musicians, singers, and thinkers who want to explore crafting songs or chants with creation-focused themes. We’ll learn some techniques of tune-smithing and wordsmithing and explore ideas for inspirational content. This session is intended to provide framework, gracious space, and motivational inspiration for creating usable, temporal art in the form of music and spoken word that participants can take home and share within their own circles or use privately for their own time of reflective meditation.
Indigenous Reflections: Living as More than Mere Existence
Jason Brough • View bio
Contemporary life has a way of bogging down our everyday experiences into the menial and the mundane. In this immersion experience, individuals will have the opportunity to engage with concepts of Indigenous Relationality through story, through experiences with our non-human kin, and through dialogue to help bring us back to our centers. In this process, we will learn to incorporate long-standing Indigenous philosophies and apply them as needed to our individual circumstances. The goal is to help us to appreciate the little things, the worlds that are often out of sight and out of mind, and to understand that going slowly in a fast-paced world is okay. Indeed, this session is intended to help us move beyond mechanical routines and to be present in the gift of life.
Writing to (and with) Your Body
Maya Williams • View bio
How often do we write in conversation with our body? Join this immersion inspired by the works of Bobby Kaur Sidhu and Toni Morrison where we write to different parts of our body — the part that feels heavy, the part that's inherited, and more. Note: sharing what we've written, or the process of how we've written, will be an invitation, not an obligation.
Common Creation: DIY Liturgy & Prayer
Ophelia Hu Kinney • View bio
In the work of tending spirit and planet in a climate-changed world, prayer and liturgy are critical tools. They are anchors in tumult, foghorns in the mist, and sturdy enough vessels to carry us from one shore to another. Prayer can be a private utterance or a communal offering. Liturgy can lend newness or be a ritual of familiarity. In this session, we'll briefly explore a few traditions of prayer and liturgy and craft our own, inspired by the ordinary gifts and growing edges at our fingertips.
When All Feels Lost, Look Back: Climate Emotions and the Wisdom Our Bodies Carry
Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner • View bio
Our emotional responses to the climate crisis are highly individual and are shaped by our personalities, resources, circles of care, the news and media we absorb — and by inherited ways of thinking about the past and the future. In this trauma-informed workshop, open to folks of all backgrounds and faith traditions, we will cast a gentle light on our climate emotions and deepen our awareness of how they show up in our hearts and bodies. Through reflective writing and embodied practice, we will explore how our individual reactions to climate change may also be shaped by our ancestors’ experiences. This session is intended to help participants deepen their compassion for their own agitation, self-abandonment, or overwhelm in the face of climate change while also moving towards curiosity and sustainable care.
Worship Without Walls
Rev. Stephen Blackmer • View bio
Join us in the woods for an experience of “wild church.” Feel your way into a congregation that extends beyond human beings. Notice what happens when the walls fall away. Immerse yourself in Nature as the sacred space in which we live and move and have our being. Engage with Christ through silence and scripture, contemplation and community. Receive the Body of Christ. Note: this worship experience, while held in the emerging Earth Christian tradition, is open to people of all ways and faiths. Also, this immersion will include contemplative walking on uneven ground.
