Alyson Pryor brings a breath of fresh air into an evangelical world often obsessed with activity and achievement. With her training as a spiritual director, including a Master’s Degree in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care from Talbot’s Institute for Spiritual Formation, she is making a big impact. Her perspective counters our cultural tendencies to push ahead without refueling—a relentless push that can lead to burnout.
So I’m thrilled that Alyson has published an important book about stepping away from the chaotic noise of the world and into the rest of Jesus in “Come Away and Rest: A Guide to Personal Spiritual Retreats.”
The publisher really captures the importance of this work, saying:
Do you feel inundated from all sides, your soul overwhelmed by endless consumption, constantly absorbing relentless content wherever you go? Yet does your soul still feel hungry and satisfaction seem out of reach? What you’re longing for is solitude with God. Come Away and Rest invites you to step away from the noise of a hurried world and into the sustaining presence of God.
Alyson Pryor gently guides you on a healing, life-giving path of spiritual renewal through personal retreats of silence, solitude, and intentional rest. This thoughtful guide offers step-by-step instructions for customizing six types of personal retreats that you can practice from anywhere. Whether you’re new to the idea of retreats or looking for fresh guidance, this book will be a nurturing companion for your spiritual growth.
This topic is important—and needed. So, I was very glad to offer an endorsement of Alyson’s book:
Alyson Pryor nails a reality that transcends the physical and invades our spiritual, emotional, relational and other aspects of life. We are hyper-driven and desperate for peace. In these pages Alyson not only shows us the importance of times of solitude, silence, and rest; she shows us just how to go about it in practical and specific ways. This is a book for our time.
“A book for our time”—that really captures the reason this book matters today.
So let’s get a taste of what this book can help us to see with 20 truths from “Come Away and Rest.”
20 Truths From ‘Come Away and Rest’
“Yet, it does not seem that the accessibility of biblical content has correlated to a rise in holy living. Knowing more has not produced better lives. We have found ourselves in a unique time and place in history where it is possible to be both overweight and malnourished.” (6)
“We are told, ‘Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed’ (Lk 5:16 NIV). The only One whose actions could save the world regarded retreating as vital as his work.” (13)
“When God created the earth, he did so to form it into what his creatures would need: meaningful work and holy rest.” (15)
“If retreating were a math equation, it might read, retreat= rest+solitude+silence. While all three practices prove challenging on their own, solitude is often the most difficult yet most valuable part of the equation.” (18)
“We declare war every time we enter into holy rest, claiming God can do more in our removal than in our rushed activity. This makes rest subversive, even violent to the kingdom of this world, for in true holy leisure we become more human, more in tune with the image of God within us.” (20)
“The earliest Christians understood the need to organize the hours of their day to maximize their experience of God’s presence among them. The most famous of thee organizers was Saint Benedict, who wrote a rule of life, a guidebook for the household of God, for many the most important text next to the Bible.” (26)
“Journaling is the best tool I know of to help reflect on experiences. It shows us what we are really thinking, really afraid of, and what we really want. Journaling steps over the barrier of the ego and gets to the good stuff, a behind-the-curtain peek at what is actually going on in our souls.” (34)
“Of the five retreats, ‘For One in Need of Rest’ is the most general, designed for those who are new to retreating or who do not feel particularly drawn to another topic. This is also the only retreat with six-hour, twenty-four-hour, and forty-eight-hour versions to help ‘on ramp’ the curiously hesitant.” (38)
“Many of us spend our days in the shallow end of our soul’s pond, treading water to keep our lives afloat and our heads above water…. Retreat gently beckons us out into deeper waters. Who we are, what we do, what we care for, accomplish, and produce are left behind like shed layers of clothing.” (46)
“Only on the rarest of occasions does God give us work we can finish. Most of our daily labor—from the filing of taxes to the planting of gardens—requires repetitive, perpetual work. Year in and year out, season by season, we do work that can never be completed.” (79)
“From the books of Genesis to Revelation, we find a God who invites us into a healthy rhythm of work and rest, and we see the people of God constantly struggle in the balance.” (79)
“Spiritual bypassing creates long-term damage to our souls and psyches when we refuse to engage with our negative emotions. Denying them, forcing them away, numbing, and distracting ourselves from them expends far more energy than it would take to listen to, attend, and learn from them.” (83)
“Grief is terribly disorienting, often like a map without a legend. I like the visual of maps because grief, in my experience, is at least two things: One, it seems there are one million paths one could take, especially at the beginning. And two, we must travel these paths (not merely notice them) to find true healing.” (119)
“On this [discernment] retreat we will unpack some deeper movements of discernment that require us to tune in to our longings and see what they might show us about our relationship with God. We will pay attention to our vices, such as envy, that may turn us to shame when it’s meant to tun us to God.” (134)
“What I like best about the disciples is the flimsiness of their faith. It gives me hope for mine. They slept and ate and camped with Jesus day after day for years…. Yet when Jesus was captured, crucified, and raised from the dead—all events he foretold to them—they did not know what to do, so they went back to their boring old jobs.” (134)
“Without the Scriptures, we lose sight of the heart of God. But without the Holy Spirit we cannot fully discern what we are called to today. Part of examining the content of what God says is considering what God might have for us here and now, with these specific people, in this space and time.” (142)
“So much of our time is spent going and doing, we do not naturally build in reflection time into our lives, yet throughout Scripture, we see the importance of reflection and remembering. God invites his people continuously to ‘remember’ (Deut. 8:1-3). We must remember what God has done, and in the remembering, perhaps make sense of how he works and moves.” (153)
“For much of Christian history, believers have understood these feelings of spiritual poverty as important markers on the journey toward spiritual maturity. Saint John of the Cross believed that Christians make ‘even greater progress’ in the dark, when the consolation of good feelings, of peace, of rightness, or joy are removed.” (154)
“Whether we have an overinflated sense of spiritual sainthood or a deep sense of our own weakness on retreat, God offers to recalibrate our hearts with his presence. We come to see that our retreat is not defined by how we experience it.” (155)
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“When we enter retreat, we consent to come face-to-face with that smoking mountain, that terrible ‘thick darkness’ (Ex. 20:21) within ourselves as much as with God. We draw near to that terrible darkness because it is the only way to meet the living God. We come to find that it is only in entering that darkness that we can engage in the darkness in the lives of those around us.” (162)
This article originally appeared here and is reposted here by permission.