Wings of the Wild Bird
Wild Geese ornament from Amos Pewter. Cloth labyrinth produced by Rebecca Rodriguez. Photograph by Larry Adams
by Kathi Bentall and Margaret McAvity
"I saw the table we had prepared with about 20 pieces of broken pottery arranged on top of a brown cloth. A candle in a pottery holder flickered next to a wooden board that held a large mass of wet clay. Underneath the table, I saw the bowl filled with tea lights.
After listening to the opening reading and each person’s gratitude moment, one of the leaders invited everyone to pick a piece of pottery from the table… I went to the table and chose the jagged half of an unglazed plate.
As I sat down and pondered the piece in my hand, I was flooded with memories. Thirteen years earlier, I had begun leading retreats with my friend Peter. During one of those early retreats at another centre, I had visited a nearby potter and gleaned some discarded pieces from his garbage bin – and the piece in my hand was from that time. More recently, Peter had developed a type of dementia and could no longer help direct retreats, and I was grieving his absence. As we went around the circle, sharing about a broken or chipped part of ourselves, I named the deep sadness I felt about the loss of my former relationship with Peter.
While one leader read the passage from Jeremiah about the potter’s house, another leader knelt at the table and slowly moulded the clay. After finishing the reading, the leader invited us to ponder how we were each being reshaped. I reflected on the profound gift that had emerged from my work with Peter and how our experiences of shared leadership had helped both to create Rivendell and to shape these retreats. As I lit a tea candle and placed it on the table, I felt overwhelmed with a profound sense of gratitude for the way my grief and sorrow had been transformed. Shedding tears of joy and sorrow, I joined in our closing song…”
This is one of many stories about transformation from our recently published book Wings of the Wild Bird: Designing Sacred Gatherings. We used the metaphor of the Wild Bird, in part inspired by the Celtic people’s description of the Holy Spirit. Like a wild goose, the Spirit cannot be controlled or tamed, but we also allude to our own wings, and the Spirit who dwells within us, encouraging us toward inner freedom.
The book comes from twenty years of offering guided silent retreats at Rivendell on Bowen Island. The ability to hold these several times a year has enabled us to experiment, take risks, and develop our approach for retreat leadership. We use an open, evolving, responsive process known as “emergent design.” Retreatants enter silence for three, five, or eight days and are free to shape their time as they are led. The schedule includes an hour of spiritual direction and a community gathering. Rather than plan our sacred gatherings ahead of the retreat, we allow the theme of the day to surface from the retreatants through the spiritual direction sessions. Then we design a gathering that we trust will respond to the group’s needs. Our approach leads to a dynamic, creative, and responsive process.
We have been surprised, challenged, inspired, and deeply blessed over these years and finally decided that we needed to share our approach, the resources we have found to be helpful, and some stories of transformation. If you are a spiritual director, a retreat leader, or a facilitator of any kind of sacred gathering, we trust that the reflections in The Wild Bird will be a source of encouragement and inspiration.
Our friend, Joyce Rupp, graciously wrote a foreword for the book including the following endorsement:
“I like Wings of the Wild Bird. More than “like.” Dare I say it—this treasure chest has smitten me with its richness and depth. I am enthralled by each piece—the content, the process, the graphics. I have tucked its jewels into the pocket of my grateful self where they will encourage receptivity to the Wild Bird’s visitations.”
Order the book at this link
or purchase at Rivendell Retreat Centre
Kathi Bentall
is one of the co-founders of Rivendell Retreat Centre on Bowen Island, British Columbia, and the Listening Post in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. She has been a spiritual director for over 25 years and has offered silent retreats at Rivendell, other retreat centres in BC, Cambodia, and Thailand. She lives on Bowen Island and enjoys walks in the forest, ocean swims, and time with her family and friends.
Margaret McAvity
pursued theological studies and became a spiritual director and retreat leader after many years as a librarian involved in international education. An active lay person in the Anglican Church, and a long-serving community member of Rivendell Retreat Centre, Margaret enjoys gardening, walking, reading and spending precious time with her spouse, children, grandchildren and extended family.
