Time Away: A Guide for Personal Retreat, by Ben Campbell Johnson and Paul H. Lang
I recently read the book Time Away, and then took my own personal retreat – right in the lounge of our church. I’ve always enjoyed going to conferences and retreats but they’ve generally been planned by others, and I’ve taken part as a participant. When I’ve helped lead retreats, they’ve been carefully structured and my experience was not at all self directed.
Ben Campbell Johnson and Paul H. Lang have written a book about deliberately structuring time away to feed one’s spiritual self, and they clearly lay out the rationale for doing so, as well as ways to make it effective.
In contrast to my frequent approach to reading spiritual books (i.e., reading them, but often not actually putting the learning into practice) I decided to use the book to plan a personal retreat for myself. I scanned the book, and chose to take only a partial day retreat as a first attempt. I took the authors’ advice and planned time away from my usual surroundings so I could avoid typical distractions of telephone, internet, or beckoning household chores.
Though it wasn’t suggested in the book, I decided to use some of my time to begin preparing for an upcoming Bible study, and to do the journaling that accompanied it. In retrospect, I probably spent too much time studying and not enough time simply listening for God’s direction to me that day.
Next time, I’ll plan a longer retreat, and take the authors’ advice to include more unstructured time and use a blank journal to respond to God’s call on my life. “God is part of you and your life, and a retreat will help you notice and acknowledge the presence of God,” the authors write. I regularly attend worship and Bible Studies, as well as help to lead them from time to time. The book Time Away helped me prepare for a different way to experience the presence of God. I received this book free from Upper Room Books as part of their Book Review program.
Kim Dungey
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