Overview

This is a story about a place of peace and beauty where people come for rest, renewal, and healing. When we face difficult challenges or need to make important decisions in our lives, where can we go?GilChrist provides an experience of silence, solitude, and simplicity surrounded by nature. GilChrist is an interfaith retreat center founded by Molly Vass-Lehman and her husband Rob to help people rediscover a sense of the sacred in their lives and to bring this experience to their personal relationships and work in the world. The book tells the story of GilChrist; how it came to be and the countless people who contributed to its creation, the stories that shaped it and shape it to this day. People from all walks find their way to GilChrist for different reasons: they come to heal, to mourn, to celebrate and for renewal. The process of how it came into being was mysterious with many twists and turns along the way. This is the story of GilChrist--A Place to Remember.

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9781612546575

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Reviews

"""Once in a while, you come upon a book that returns you to the heart and soul of what really matters. GilChrist is such a book. Rich in story and luminous with images, GilChrist opens before you the contemplative path to peace, rest, healing, simplicity of being, and a reunion with your true self. This book is a refuge; a deep breath; a wise, old soul; and a thing of beauty."" --Sue Monk Kidd, Author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings ""Through frequently breathtaking photographs and prose, Molly Vass-Lehman brings us 'spiritual seekers' back 'down to earth, ' depositing us at a place named GilChrist. In Exodus 33:21, God tells Moses 'See, there is a place near Me . . . It is a place where you can come very close to Me without being destroyed.' Midrash Genesis Rabba 45:6 further explains that contrary to what you might first think, God is not 'in' the world but rather that the world is 'within' God. God is the place of the world. Indeed, in rabbinic tradition, the Hebrew word maqom, place is itself actually another name for God."" --Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Scholar-in-Residence at the Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco and Author of The Book of Letters: A Mystical Hebrew Alphabet, Honey from the Rock, and more ""On one level, this is the story of a much-loved retreat center 'where natural beauty strengthens our human capacity for compassion, gratitude, reverence, and creativity.' Deeper down, it's a meditation on the eternal human quest for meaning, purpose, and hope. As it recounts the personal pilgrimages that converged to create a place where many have recovered a sense of the sacred, it offers hope to all who suffer from the traumas of modern life. The healing we need is found in what Thomas Merton called the 'hidden wholeness' found beneath the broken surface of our lives. In this lovely little book, Molly Vass-Lehman offers us a portal into that blessed space, one available to all of us whether or not we can spend time in the place she so lovingly writes about."" --Parker J. Palmer, Author of Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, Healing the Heart of Democracy, and A Hidden Wholeness"

Author Information

Molly Vass-Lehman served as a faculty member at Western Michigan University for over twenty years. She was director of the Holistic Health and Contemplative Well-Being program from 1985-1998. She is the co-author of Seeds of Awakening: Cultivating and Sustaining the Inner Life. Molly was a founding fellow of the Fetzer Institute and consultant to the organization as well as other health care, educational, and business organizations. She has been a psychotherapist specializing in psycho-spiritual counseling for over thirty years. With extensive connections to Christian monastic traditions and ongoing interest in contemplative practices, Molly and her husband, Rob, established an interfaith retreat center, GilChrist, in 1995.

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