The Retreat House at Hillsboro

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The Retreat House at Hillsboro

The Retreat House holds compassionate and inclusive spaces for peace and drawing close to the Divine.

06/05/2026

Pause.

Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn't any
other stair
quite like
it.
i'm not at the bottom,
i'm not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

A.A.Milne. “Half Way Down.”

~~~~

“ [O]ur service to the world might be simply to keep a place where there is no noise, where people can be silent.”

Thomas Merton

Photo by Tim Mossholder. Unsplash.com.

05/29/2026

Pause.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry. “The Peace of Wild Things.”

~~~~

You are made of the same breath
I use to shape the clouds,
the same atoms that feed the roots,
the same quiet that stills the birds.

…Let the stars remind you
that your smallness is not your shame—
it’s your entry point.
That is where real belonging begins.

John Roedel.

Photo by Elias Maurer. Unsplash.com.

05/22/2026

Pause.

I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and to the woods,
and spent all summer forgetting what I'd been taught—
two times two, and diligence, and so forth,
how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,
machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.
By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back
to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember
the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,
the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn't a penny in the bank,
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

Mary Oliver. “Just As The Calendar Began To Say Summer.”

~~~~

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

John O’Donohue. From “For One Who is Exhausted.”

Photo by Ahmed Gamal. Unsplash.com.

05/15/2026

Pause.

Only this world—
not some unknown chance
of life somewhere else,
only this here, this life,
this improbable chance
to be steward of meadow
and desert, mountain and cliff,
this chance to inhabit this
acre, this continent, this planet,
to know this frozen pond,
this slender stream, this dried grass,
this herd of mule deer, this darkness
that comes when our planet spins,
this light that arrives
on darkness’s edge.
Only this chance to sing
of this world, this disappearing
world, this world of emergence,
this world with its stars
and its bones, its prickles
and petals, its sweetness
and ache, this world
with its hopelessness
and, oh dare I say it,
its hope.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. “Only This World.”

~~~~

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream.
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.

Amy Lowell. From “Petals.”

Photo by Anant Sharma. Unsplash.com.

05/08/2026

Pause.

Again I fall in love with the field
as if for the first time—the first time
I ever saw a pair of geese land there
then waddle through tall dry grass;
the first time I ever watched it transform
from drab ocher to brilliant green;
the first time I ever felt its spaciousness—
how it becomes a basin for light.
Every day I fall in love again with the field,
many times a day. Every day, I marvel
there are new ways to fall in love.
Once, I didn’t know how intimate it was,
this relationship to the land.
Now I know it as the truest thing.
Inevitable, this love affair with color,
texture, change, scent, the sound
of grass moving against grass.
Inevitable, the love that rises
out of dew, out of frost, out of vastness,
out of wholeness, out of loss,
and reteaches me what it is to love, to be loved.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. “When Everything Is Field.”

~~~~

“Every time I step upon the Earth, I will train myself to see that I am walking on you, my Mother. Every time I place my feet on the Earth I have a chance to be in touch with you and with all your wonders. With every step I can touch the fact that you aren’t just beneath me, dear Mother, but you are also within me.”

Thich Nhat Hanh. From “Walking Tenderly Upon Mother Earth.”

Photo by Roman Grachev. Unsplash.com.

05/01/2026

Pause.

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

E.E. Cummings. “May My Heart Always Be Open To.”

~~~~

“I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.”

Mary Oliver. From “Lead.”

Photo by Monica Maree. Unsplash.com.

04/24/2026

Pause.

I am circling what is true,
with my arms open I am circling,
with eyes wide I am circling,
I am circling that which has never changed
and that which is always changing.
I circle with eyes full of tears, I circle
as I sing along with voice breaking,
lips praising, I circle with chest
expanding, feet eager, my body
exhausted, my whole being charged,
and the only words on my lips are thank you.
I am circling with the certainty
I can only do this right. I circle
the spaces I’ve circled before
only nothing is the same. I circle
the nothing at the center and the everything
which has come from it. With every step,
I see something new, something
I could not have seen before. With every step
I understand and lose my understanding.
I am circling all that can never be known
and all I long to know. I am circling
in quickening spirals and in lazy
orbits and I circle for the joy
of circling. I am circling you, God,
as Rilke invited me to do, and
still I am learning who you are,
so I circle and I circle and I circle.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. “Growing Orbits.”

~~~~

“I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
…I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

Rainer Maria Rilke. From “I Live My Life In Growing Orbits.”

Photo by Juan Gomez. Unsplash.com.

04/17/2026

Pause.

Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
Where they stand.
Here among the children of the sap
Is no pride of ancestry:
A birch may wear no less the morning
Than an oak.
Here are no heirlooms
Save those of loveliness,
In which each tree
Is kingly in its heritage of grace.
Here is but beauty’s wisdom
In which all trees are wise.
Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
In the rainbow—
The sunlight—
And the lilac-haunted rain;
And bread will come to them
As beauty came:
In the rainbow—
In the sunlight—
In the rain.

David Rosenthal. “Trees Need Not Walk the Earth.”

~~~~

What is the greatest gift?
Could it be the world itself — the oceans, the meadowlark,
the patience of the trees in the wind?
Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?

Mary Oliver. From “Red Bird.”

Photo by Simon Wilkes. Unsplash.com.

04/10/2026

Pause.

Today, for a time, I am more red rock cliff than river.
I sit and do not do.
Perhaps some part of me crumbles.
I do not resist the crumbling.
I do not resist stillness.
I am weary of resisting.
So weary that today
I promised myself
I would make time for nothingness.
What pleasure I found in not rushing,
not rising, not streaming, not traveling to,
not coming from.
Why have I put off, again and again,
the chance to be intimate
with nothing?
Yesterday, when I heard myself
tell a friend my experience of nothing
is what I think God is,
then I wondered why I fill my hours
with so much everything?
So today I cliff. I rock wall.
I sandstone. I canyon.
I sit still and undo
and meet the great nothing
that holds up everything.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. “Nothing.” ahundredfallingveils.com.

~~~~

"Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile."

Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo by Femke Schreurs. Unslash.com.

04/09/2026

SIGN UP NOW! Join us as we notice spring emerging with open hearts.

We will gather on Zoom on four Monday evenings: April 13 - May 4, 2026 from 6:30 - 7:45 p.m. ET.

Join us and explore visio divina (sacred seeing), the practice of viewing the world with the eyes of our heart. Like the ancient practice of lectio divina (sacred hearing), which listens to the text with the ears of our heart, this modern adaptation - using a simple camera to attune our perception - helps us deepen our connection to the Divine.

We will be referencing Christine Valters Paintner's classic book – Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice, as our guide. You do not need to purchase the book and please note this is not a “photography class.” Neither experience nor creativity are needed.

Learn more and register on our website calendar:

http//retreathousehillsboro.org

Address

P. O. Box 1171
Chestertown, MD
21620

Telephone

+14103647069

Website

https://retreathousehillsboro.org/

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