Summer Green

New opportunities for retreats 

The novel coronavirus pandemic is affecting all people to varying  degrees, including Cedar Cross. Yet, like many others, we are learning something new about our ministry of providing a place of rest, reflection, and renewal.

We are noticing two new ways for people to experience a time of retreat.

One of those is a small group of friends. A group of four can come on retreat with each having his/her living area (bed, sitting area, and full bathroom). When the group wants to gather, they can keep six feet apart in the Community Room. 

The other is adults introducing their children and grandchildren to being on a retreat. One of our Mission Group members, Mac Hulslander, and his wife, Peg, brought their teenage grandchildren to Cedar Cross. You can read his reflection about that experience below. Of course, we still welcome individuals and couples for retreats as well.

If you want to talk about possibilities of being on retreat, you can send an email to me at cedarcrossregistrar@gmail.com or call me at 919-729-2586.

As the psalmist shared: “Be still and know that I am God.”
 

A family’s experience together at Cedar Cross

The Chinese character for “crisis” incorporates the meanings of both “danger” and “opportunity.” Such are the times we are all experiencing.

We here at Cedar Cross Retreat Center are seeking various ways by which to respond to the challenges presented by the pandemic. While our purpose of providing a safe space for rest, relaxation and renewal has largely focused on individual/couple/group retreatants (read “adult”), my wife and I recently successfully extricated our 13 and 15-year old grand-daughters from their phones, homes, and TV shows for experiencing a four-day “mini” retreat at Cedar Cross for fun and familial bonding.

It was a great experience!

Whether spending our time playing horseshoes, walking the trails, sharing chance (but poignant) conversations over meals, delighting over a box turtle’s visit or composing poems by candlelight, the days we shared together were delightfully full and pleasurable. (One clue to which is their strong desire to return!)

I write this simply as a way of planting a seed on how a family (or even one with very close friends) could also provide for restful and renewing experiences for “such a time as this.”

And, it also is a real help with keeping the Center operative when our income flow has been drastically reduced. Please give this possibility some thought for an upcoming summer activity and approach Jimmy about scheduling your own or family get-away for re-creative and restorative ways of “sheltering” in a beautiful, serene, and inviting sanctuary.
 

A view from the trail

Listening to a summer rain

To give you more of a sense of what life is like at Cedar Cross, we are including a 30-second video in each edition of Journeys. In the last edition, we took a virtual walk along the Middle Trail. In this edition, you are invited to click the link below and listen to the sound of summer rain on the trees near the Lodge. Here is the link:
https://www.cedarcrossretreat.info/2020/08/07/summer-rain/

Getting to know the Mission Group of Cedar Cross 

Note: We consider everyone who participates in a retreat here, prays for this ministry, volunteers to help, and/or offers financial support to be a part of Cedar Cross Retreat Center. In addition to the hundreds who are part of the Cedar Cross community, we have a Mission Group that oversees the ministry. This section is intended to give us all a little insight about these folks. The names of Mission Group members is listed at the base of each edition.

In this edition of Journeys, Lillie Jones responds to the prompt of how she got involved with Cedar Cross.

My journey with Cedar Cross began through my involvement with Covenant Community Church. One of the members was my respected and esteemed friend, Mac Hulslander. Through that, I became involved in developing the retreat center. I remember the first time I drove down the path and felt as though we drove 10 miles through the woods (although it’s actually only a half mile off the road). I found that both the work of Cedar Cross and the people involved to be invitational for me. This has been a way for me to draw closer to God.