New Meeting: Practicing Retreats and Holy Listening in a Zoom World
by Becky Eldredge and Sam Rahberg
A few months ago, which seems like ages in the days of COVID-19, several colleagues consulted with us about moving spirituality programs from in-person to online formats. The programs in question ranged from well-established spiritual direction training types to various kinds of retreat. Naturally, most were also asking about moving their spiritual direction ministry online.
When these colleagues described their goals, even we were surprised by our firm response: “The time is now. In fact, it’s likely we are late to the party!” Spiritual directors and communities all over the world have made haste in 2020 to translate their gatherings into online platforms. The time is ripe for experimentation, and we need to learn quickly, because spiritual seekers have been anticipating and desiring this transition for a while. Even before the pandemic and physical distancing measures, spiritual directees and retreatants have assumed that remote connections to spiritual resources would be as available as other online resources in their lives—education, banking, streaming, telehealth, and everyday shopping.
We come to this conversation like most spiritual directors. We lack degrees in technology, marketing, and communication, although we have felt relatively comfortable navigating the tools of an increasingly digital world—e-mail, smartphones, laptops, web hosting, and a dash of social media. But now the bar has been raised, and is rising even higher, as we scramble to improve our use of web conferencing, live streaming, and video editing. As spiritual directors and retreat leaders ourselves, we are eager to pool our learning about accompanying others online so that we can all exercise our listening and leading as effectively as these times demand.
Online Retreats
Since physical distancing recommendations went into effect, we have joined the many who have hosted and participated in near-countless Zoom meetings. In addition, both of us have been invited to facilitate a number of online workshops and extended retreats. While Sam had long been working with spiritual direction online, Becky had already been reaching through and beyond spiritual direction into the world of online retreats. We wanted to learn even more. When the meeting IDs and passwords really started flowing this spring, we started participating in webinars and online presentations, not only for the content but to observe best practices in online facilitation. Then we connected to compare notes about what we had gleaned from fellow spiritual directors, adult educators, and other community leaders.
Our conversations are leading us toward greater confidence in the value of online retreats for our time. Because the majority of participants seem to be growing more comfortable with such tools, there is less need to apologize for the online format. Surely, we all miss the kind of intimacy that in-person gatherings provide, but there are genuine advantages to online offerings—adaptable time frames, practicing spiritual disciplines in our home settings, and connecting with people all over the world. After a six-week online retreat with Becky about praying daily with Scripture, participants told her things like, “The retreat in daily life was unlike any silent weekend I’ve experienced. Our online retreat allowed me to integrate the practices into my actual life.” Similarly, one of Sam’s recent retreat participants said, “I appreciated how the energy of the group moved into my home!” These dynamics, we believe, are sustainable well beyond stay-at-home orders.
We considered carefully which aspects of our learning might be most helpful to share here, and we chose to focus on hosting online retreats because they include many facets of attentiveness. Certainly, we exercise our experience as spiritual directors when facilitating retreats, but now we are challenged with managing the group process and helping people navigate technology, all while cultivating sacred space. Offering online retreats helps spiritual directors reimagine our roles. How do we carry a sense of intimate listening into increasingly demanding (and, perhaps, exciting) settings? How do we apply our observations about spiritual anxieties to foster a safe and nonjudgmental environment online? When spiritual directors hear one-on-one, for example, that people are experiencing fear, uncertainty, and struggle with the unknown, it equips us to support today’s spiritual seekers. Like retreat leaders tend to do, we carry those insights into retreat design and teaching. Yet, as the modalities of our retreat gatherings change, we also consider how the same fears, uncertainties, and struggles may initially apply to the use of technology itself. How then do spiritual directors and retreat leaders bring with them the tools of listening into online spiritual experiences? We hope this article stirs up conversation and shared learning about this topic.
Experimenting
Pandemic life is not the only reason we must step more boldly into the online world. Our communities are becoming more transient. Some who live in rural areas have trouble finding a spiritual director nearby, while other regions lack trained companions entirely. Seekers who still enjoy the privilege of being gainfully employed may find that work demands press against the desire to create enough space for spiritual renewal. For reasons of time, accessibility, and more, people are asking spiritual directors to experiment with becoming more available online.
Part of our ministry as spiritual directors is to invite people to holy listening in their lives. We have proven adept at offering this kind of companionship beautifully in person and one-on-one. Now we have come to a moment when the the collective longing and lament grow louder. What if online retreats offer us the means to take the posture of accompaniment to wider audiences? What if we could teach a larger group of people how to pray, how to be still, how to embrace the silence, how to discern? What if we expanded our work online through guided meditations, experiences with new spiritual practices, and introductions to spiritual direction? Such things just sound good for the world. And many spiritual directors are trying them.
There is no shortage of bumps in the road for us in leading such experiments. For example, we have irritated participants by dropping repeatedly due to poor rural Internet connections (an urgent reminder of disparity); we have abandoned entire portions of our designs to explain basic web conferencing tools to a small percentage of the group (a gap that otherwise distracts and diminishes full participation); and we have needed, in nearly every online exchange, to speak directly to people’s screen-weariness (a limitation that will not be eased any time soon).
In all this, the persistent challenges have paled in comparison to the meaningful moments when we have witnessed the holy coming into view through technology. Elders are becoming more adept at troubleshooting their own audio and video issues; spiritual resources are being made more accessible to new audiences (at least those with Internet connections); and participants and facilitators alike are finding renewed commitments to focus and communicate their message in a multisensory way.
Learnings
We do not doubt that leading retreats has made us better spiritual directors one-on-one, any more than we take for granted the fact that being a spiritual director shapes the ways we speak and listen to a group. These truths seemed evident prepandemic, and they are especially true now as we experience the call to move our forms of accompaniment online. The same Spirit is stirring, and we are learning together how to listen through all the static of technology and fear and ambiguity so that we can follow.
A few key lessons are beginning to coalesce for us as we design online spirituality experiences and improve upon them. Consider some of these principles as fodder for your own planning:
Expand the bounds of the real-time experience
We have greatly appreciated the way a “real-time” experience can be enhanced with introductory materials sent in advance (e.g., tech tips, a poem, a question for reflection). People seem to appreciate the opportunity to arrive early and work out connection issues nearly as much as they appreciate some follow-up note or reflection that helps them linger with the experience even after the host has clicked the “End Meeting for All” button.
Delegate a cohost
Some of the most effective deliveries we have seen, especially for large groups, involve cofacilitators who can share or divide the tasks, or a lead presenter supported by a tech person who offers introductions, fields questions, sorts and calls attention to comments from the chat, shares files and links, and manages break-out rooms, all while following a presenter’s script. This may require more preliminary work in coordination, but it allows the lead facilitator, in real time, to focus more on the group and its process than the technology. Kudos to Spiritual Directors International for modeling some of these approaches in online events.
Anchor high interaction in brief presentation
Short-duration presentations (for us, no more than 15 to 30 minutes, including guided meditations) tend to prove most effective in our experience. Unless the content is especially geared for large group webinars, we find it most helpful to unpack a small number of central ideas and then turn the process over to some form of small group discussion or large group activity. Ideally, these processes help people reflect more deeply on what they are experiencing together. Since we cannot observe the energy of small group discussions if they are held outside the main meeting, however, we tend to pull people back together in a large group, starting with a representative who can share key learnings, or with a time for people to continue reflecting in silence together.
Engage the senses
Becky likes to incorporate physical action and shared rituals into her online gatherings. Even the simple action of lighting a candle together, with each participant within view of cameras, can help affirm that what is about to happen involves more than the passing attention of another web call. Add to that other forms of multisensory media like art, poetry, videos, and occasional physical movements, and we stir up a sense of bodily and contemplative connection that surpasses the limits of fiberoptics and Wi-Fi.
Chat prayerfully
We have found that chat features offer beautiful ways for facilitators and participants to pray together, share perspectives, express immediate feedback, and expand the conversation with links to other resources. When introduced to a shared etiquette and contemplative role for such features within a retreat experience, people seem able to engage one another quietly and reflectively with words, phrases, and questions.
Build material from the fruits of process
One of Sam’s most effective modules to date was the result of his taking some time as facilitator to look back over a series of retreat conversations and pull together a list of recommendations for the final sessions. This content, developed from their own words during the retreat, offered participants something concrete and cocreated. That material led to a lively discussion among the participants themselves, which fostered a strong energy independent of the facilitator. We can try these kinds of approaches to help minimize the feel of a data-dump that proceeds as planned with or without the unique input of the particular people we are serving in the moment.
Model acceptance and integration of technology
Like others have modeled for Becky, she has a sense that participants are most comfortable when the presenter projects comfort. We are learning that facilitators can and must proceed as if these tools are holy and useful, because they are the means for conversation and listening for our time. Without the freedom to gather in person as easily as we have in the past, we must keep exploring these new means to gather. We have witnessed spiritual directors and retreat leaders easing into the digital environment with beautiful reassurance that people need not feel alone and without some kind of spiritual support. It can be done.
Invitation
Now is the time to lean into this season of experimentation, in spiritual direction, certainly, as well as in settings like online retreats that draw upon and stretch our specialties. We are impressed and encouraged by the high level of tolerance today’s seekers bring to trying new things, overcoming glitches, and reflecting together on how we might develop processes and make them even more accessible. These dynamics may not last forever, so let all who feel called to the task experiment boldly with fresh ideas and improve upon them iteratively. The time is now to try to evaluate new expressions of spiritual support. Do not wait for a mythical moment that holds no remaining kinks.
We extend a special encouragement to spiritual direction training programs, for the sake of new spiritual directors and those they serve. You hold an esteemed position in equipping listeners for the demands of our times. What you discover, practice, and develop during this sea change is sure to guide professional standards for us all. Thank you for your extraordinary efforts in these times.
Finally, on those days when we might still find ourselves slow-walking toward a future that is already now, let us remember and give thanks for those colleagues and listeners who have themselves walked with us. They inspire us to renewed humility and courage with every instance of authentic meeting—whatever our circumstance, and whatever their tools for meeting.
Note: Write becky@beckyeldredge.com or sam@samuelrahberg.com to tell us about your experience. Together we can all keep innovating toward improved online experiences for spiritual seekers. As we have been thinking about these themes, we are especially indebted to our colleagues Victor Klimoski, Kiely Todd Roska, Christianne Squires, and Barbara Sutton.
This article first appeared in "PRESENCE: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction," Volume 26, Number 4 – December 2020.
