Invitation to Retreat, Ruth Haley Barton. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press/Formatio, 2018.

Summary: A guide to retreat as a spiritual practice exploring why retreat, preparing for retreat, helpful practices on retreat, and concluding our retreat and returning from (and to) retreat.

Jesus gives a startling invitation to his disciples in Mark 6:30-31. He said, “Come away to a deserted place…and rest a while.” Wouldn’t you love an invitation like that? Ruth Haley Barton proposes in this book that this is an invitation Jesus extends to each and every one of us. She encourages us to embrace retreat as a formational practice. She explains what she means as follows:

“Retreat in the context of the spiritual life is an extended time apart for the purpose of being with God and giving God our full and undivided attention; it is, as Emilie Griffin puts it, “a generous commitment to our friendship with God.” The emphasis is on the words extended and generous. Truth is, we are not always generous with ourselves where God is concerned. Many of us have done well to incorporate regular times of solitude and silence into the rhythm of our ordinary lives, which means we’ve gotten pretty good at giving God twenty minutes here and half an hour there. And there’s no question we are better for it!

But many of us are longing for more—and we have a sense that there is more if we could create more space for quiet to give attention to God at the center of our beings. We sense that a kind of fullness and satisfaction is discovered more in the silence than in the words, more in solitude than in socializing, more in spaciousness than in busyness. “Times come,” Emilie Griffin goes on to say, “when we yearn for more of God than our schedules will allow. We are tired, we are crushed, we are crowded by friends and acquaintances, commitments and obligations. The life of grace is abounding, but we are too busy for it. Even good obligations begin to hem us in.”

Barton goes on in this book to offer extensive practical help in various aspects of taking retreats, from preparing to retreat and facing our exhaustion (including encouraging us to sleep until we naturally awaken on retreat if possible). She addresses the rhythms of retreat and even offers a suggested daily schedule. She gives help on prayer during the retreat including fixed hour prayers. She addresses the challenge of letting go, unplugging and the deeper issue of relinquishing our false-self patterns. For those familiar with the Enneagram, she suggests particular false-self patterns we may relinquish for each Enneagram type. She discusses the chance retreat gives us for discernment, for paying attention to our life situation and how God may be leading. There is practical help for re-entering our lives.

Throughout, Barton relates personal experiences in retreat, discussions with spiritual directors, insights as she reflects on scriptures, her own practices, including taking time to exercise during retreats (something I’m inclined to forget!), and some of her personal compulsions and how retreat has been an important factor in God’s transformative work in her life. Each chapter concludes with a “Practicing Retreat” page with questions we may use in preparing for or engaging in our retreat. Three “interludes” break up the content with poetry for reflection and prayer. Appendices offer a form of fixed hour prayers and practical considerations such as choosing a retreat location, our intention, and even what to pack.

This is a slim book is full of wisdom and practical insights like the following:

“Many of us are wasting our life’s energy fighting for things that aren’t that important in the whole scheme of things. There are times when the quiet of retreat is the only way we will be able to discern well what battle we should be engaging and how.”

As I husband energies that wane with age, I can’t afford to waste them on unimportant battles. Mercifully, Jesus invites me to come away with Him.  Barton’s book reminded me of that pending invitation. It is one I will turn to as I prepare for retreat. And its convenient size makes it the perfect book to pack, to hold, to use in reflection, on retreat.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.