going in the future. get started at keeps.com/tv. >> good morning and welcome to mosaic with ron swisher. is a joy to have you here on behalf of dr. hugh burroughs, our cohost. i was at a retreat in tahoe with my methodist man from from the fairfield church. and while i was there, hugh burroughs emailed me and said he he wanted to do the next program on spiritual retreats. p p do not know that i was on a spiritual retreat. he was going to host the program this morning

morning but had to go out of town. yes me to do this. i'm ded to have is the first guest, tom from the jesuit center retreat. >> tell us a little bit more. >> >> it was founded back in 1925 d 1925 and the jesuits at santa clara university, which was sana clara college back then, decided decided they wanted to have a place where at that time, men could go on retreat. it was not until the 1960s when women could could join. it was february 7, the first mass was celebrated at at the retreat house in the one building that was there, which was a house and the house still stands and that is where my offices. since then, literally thousands and thousands of pe come treaand th starond they nclude shortly after on sunday. there are silent retrea, silent retreats, retreats for

talking. retreats for men, for women, for both. a lot of different topics. >> i the with the center for two two years last friday. going into my third year. >> can anyone come to the retreat center? >> anyone. we have an amazing variety of people coming. christians and non-christians. , non-christians. catholics, protestants, muslims, jews. it is a jesuit retreat center, so the focus is primarily christian, but we have retreats for homeless men and homeless women. we have retreats for

ex-gang members from east l.a. we will have retreats for young adults and retreats for veterans. lots of different topics. >> a variety. tell us the location because you had some beautiful pictures but we do not not get them in time. tell us where it is located. >> it is funny that you asked. it is in los altos. not the poorest town, but the property was purchased in 1925 for a song. so we have 38 acres in los los altos that have views in evy location. >> the lots of places where people could be quiet and meditate. also, places where you you could have meetings and it is a welcoming environment. >> tell us a little bit about your background before we break. break. you have a doctorate in liberation theology? >> systematic theology. i did my my research in peru. >> that is where it started. and and then it came here with the s the emphasis on theology and

liberation. >> and women's liberation theology. you find that it has gone into every denomination in many different areas. a theme of liberation theology. >> it is great to have that kind kind of the background. we will be back to that. thank you for being with us. please join us in in the next segment with the jesuit center.

>> welcome back to mosaic. the focus is on spiritual retreats. tell us about what a spiritual retreat would be like. >> it is rooted in the jesuit faith. it is difficult to pinpoint it in one words but one one thing that ignatius said was was find god in all things. so his focus was to have people not not just be private prayers,

people who prayed and then went out into the world to change the the world, to bring god to other other people, to do good. >> excellent. i think i mentioned to you at our retreat, retreat, as a methodist men, we wanted to not only have spiritual growth and development, we wanted to be active in our world. that is how how you see the purpose of the recent treat retreat. >> in the light of a nation spirituality, a jesuit spirituality, it is meaningless that nothing goes with you when you leave the retreat. you come on a retreat to re-create, to refresh, to become more centered, to be more in touch with god, but all of that has to to be focused got into the world. i don't know if you know about the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius. >> i was trained by them. >> university of san francisco. the primary form would be a 30

day silent retreat. done it twice so it is not possible. >> you have to be careful. to tell you the truth, when we do the spiritual exercises at the jesuit retreat center, we asked people to tune in their phones d phones and most of them do not want them back when they are done. the whole idea is that it is an intense experience where you're able to slow down and able to truly reflect on how it is god is in your life and how god is calling you to live your life. one of the things that is so important is that at the very very end of the spiritual exercises, he wrote, love is shn is shown more in deeds and then in words. it's great able to say say the right stuff but if you are not doing the right stuff, it is not working. >> i think the fact that the transfiguration when jesus takes peter, james, and john, they

don't want to stay there. but they can't cast out the evil that is there. it takes prayer and one translation it says it takes prayer and fasting. our es our efforts of being in solitude is to strip this out of the world. >> most people are not going to do a 30 day retreat but the spiritual exercises are possible possible to do over a number of months. and where you are meeting with a spiritual director weekly and we do that at the retreat center, also. we have a day retreats. 30 day retreats. the last retreat of te season is this coming weekend ad weekend and it is a treat retreat for women in recovery. >> have you met some of the

facilitators? >> i know them all. i work with my staff in the jesuit staff. they do a lot of the retreats but also we have -- we bring in people from the outside on particular topics. just before we came on, i got a call from one of the ships that is going to do a retreat for us next year. >> okay. i just thought of somes some notes that i had taken that that i would like to share with you. just a few of them that john wesley asked his persons in in the development of their classes and he broke it down to image management, habit formation, self-deception, and sin of idolatry. these are some of the questions that we looked at the last day of our retreat. mi honest in all of my acts and words or do i exaggerate? can they be trusted? am i self-conscious, self-pity, or self-justifying? in the happy

habit foundation, am i enjoying prayer? do i pray about the money i spend? under self-decep, under self-deception, am i defeated in any part of my life? life? am i jealous, impure, dis, impure, distrustful, and if i am, what am i doing about it? and under the sin of idolatry, is anyone who might fear, dislike, has hold resentment toward? do i grumble and complan and complain costly and his christ real to me? what you think of those? >> what is interesting is that one of the things you learn in the spiritual exercises and anything that when you study examination, it is the examination of conscious. everyone is trained to stop a couple times a day and the

questions you just posed are very much the questions people are asked to pose to themselves. themselves. i would say where was it that you found god? where where was it that you might havt have felt the absence of god and and why? and i do it in a physical way. where you push and and got away or will you you telling god to come closer? it is a good habit to get into because you take the part of the the day that preceded you and let's stop and look at that for a moment. in our busy lives, this could be really important because we pray without even thinking about it. >> i guess what is also challenging is to ask this. something that you have confidence in. that you could -- -- you share this, really some of these questions with each other and it is not just an individual growth, but it is collective response. >> one of the other things that we do at the retreat center is a

a program with one of the original jesuits. and ignatius said he did the exercises more than anyone else. it teaches people to give the exercises. >> >> thank you, tom. i'm looking forward to coming to the center. center. >> i hope you well. > >> please join us in the next two segments with mike carr, whs who is opening a retreat center.

>> welcome back to mosaic. we been talking about spiritual retreats but where do we go for for these retreats? my car is here to tell us what the placesn places in california.

>> it is great to have you. tell have you. tell us about some of the places. >> shore, united camps, conferences, and retreats, uccr, uccr, what we do is manage camp camp conference and retreat centers throughout california so our customers come to our facis to unplug, relax, and look for a a sacred space and as you know, retreating means something different to everyone. >> that is true. you mentioned r mentioned earlier about being renewed and restored and revitalized. we also mentioned that there are different kinds of retreats. >> that is correct. people and recur a very. people in recovery. people who are dealing dealing with things that they need to deal with. >> the types of programs, retreat programs that usually attend our facilities can be very spiritual in nature. but retreats can also be movement.

it could be dance, could be sin, it could be hiking. i think the term retreat means to seek a safe haven. for some people to feel the earth beneath their feet, it is important to get away from the normal daily activities and to engage with os with others and maybe that is the retreat. or maybe the retreat is to explore the spiritual experience while they are at one of our facilities. many of the programs that attend attend our facilities are led by by a group leader, so we have many types of programs that come come through from youth program, youth programs, we have family programs, we have men's retreat, women's retreats. many different different types of retreats. what we are able to do in our

facilities is provide behind-ths provide behind-the-scenes operations and to help lead the retreats so that they are not dd not distracted and what the focus is and what they are there there to further and if they are are there to further themselves spiritually or if maybe they are are there to be with an organization and accomplish a larger goal within that organization. >> you have been doing this a long time. how many years? >> uccr has been around for 45 years. i've been involved in this business since the mid-80s. mid-80s. during that time, i have seen a variety of groups come through. i see yoga retreats. i have seen tai chi. we have even had retreats a focus on laughing. laughing really opens up the spirit and opens you up physically so it ws -- we are exposed to a lot of the staff that manages the

facilities has the opportunity to experience a lot of these retreat types that come throughd through. and we have quite a long staff retention and i think i think it is because the variety of these wonderful groups of people that come through that they get to serve. >> i was fascinated where you began. >> yes. glide memorial church. united camps, conferences, and retreats were getting together regularly to talk about how different the 60s were from the 50s and during those meetings, they just discovered that they each had may be a retreat center, a conference center, or a camp center that they were using for their own retreat. they would go in and blow the

dust off and creek the doors open and get in there and do their own thing and that was just a few times a year. these beautiful properties. some of them on 800 acres, 600 acres, 1000 acres. beautiful properties. they came up with a business idea of why don't we use each other's facilities? what it would take the retreats and go to each other's facilities? they start to that and then said one we open these beautiful places up to the public. everybody needs a retreat. everyone needs to get away from your normal life and just find something different. the business started. >> and throughout california, let's go through the places. >> we have pilgrim pines in southern california. >> way down there. and speakingf speaking of dr. tom powell hours he have another retreat center in the sears. >> that is auburn. >> then there's another one just just right across the bay, westr bay, westminster retreat. currently we manage 13 different

different properties and so we e we have upwards of hundreds of thousands of retreats that come through our facilities every year. >> where are you located? >> our office is in petaluma. a very historic religious center and then they moved across the y the bay later in the 70s and we have just kind of continued moving north. we try to stay central to all of our facilitie. our facilities. ourselves in our our organization, we feel start strongly about staff retreats. we get our staff together several times a year to talk about business but we also slow down the retreats and give our staff opportunity to relax.

>> you were there in the early 60s. >> correct. >> cecil williams came in the mid-60s and they have a new autobiography out that is exciting. so they probably did not know this much about again but i'm sure they heard about you. >> yes. that was our genesis point. >> that is really good. i look forward to going to one of the centers. i was in tahoe. >> you were at the zephyr conference center. >> that is not connected, is it? it? >> now, but it is very beautiful beautiful i mentioned you and many of your colleagues have attended retreats. >> i've heard the names. now let's go back to the last segment and talk more about those locations and about the retreats. >> let's do that. >> we've been talking to mike carr. welcome.

>> welcome back into mosaic. we are talk about spiritual retreats with mike carr. i think think mike has reasons. >> really, what we filtered out is that there are five basic reasons why people like to

retreat and need to retreat. the the first one is really to disconnect and i think you and i i touch base with that a little bit earlier this morning. just unplugging from everything. i don't know if you've heard the phrase unplug. it is unplug, which is unplug your phones and your faxes and your computers. get away from that and then, there is the term unpack. so when you come to our facilities, facilities, there is the physicl the physical and packing your bag, but then you are away from all those plug-in things. it is time to unpack. >> find something new. you have an opportunity to find something something new. the second part is connected so you disconnect from all that. a when you are at at a retreat center, the best thing to do is to connect. some people come in to connect with themselves. they are disconnected and they need to connect with themselves and then they are there to connect withr people as well. community and

team building. retreats, people often sit and share and laugh. they might hike together. they might often sing together. they might go out and play volleyball volleyball or shoot hoops together something like that. >> >> they found things about each other that they did not know. >> >> thank you. that is exactly it. that is one of the most important things when you are unplug from the in a retreat setting, your focus changes and you get to know yourself and to get to know others better. accomplish goals. people come to to accomplish their goals. that is usually furthering their mission of why they are there, whether it is individual or it is a group that needs to accomplish and further the mission. and of course, rest and and relax. and to have time during the retreat if you're doing some group processing. make sure that your pitches events have time to nap. take a

hike. again, they are unplugged. are unplugged. this is an opportunity for them to learn more about themselves and learn more about the others that they are with. >> we have touched on that to a certain extent. it is great to hear some of those reasons of why we go on retreats and dr. thomas powers,, he is not only a a jesuit but the first pope elected is a jesuit. so, pope f. pope francis. we commend them. not only has he been emphasizing emphasizing i think retreats and and solitude, but he is also involved in the world and the poverty in the world and injustice and inequity. so i think we do all these things,

disconnect and build community and some of the things you mentioned, we want to go back into the world and be able to give what we have experienced. >> absolutely. retreats, i think think retreats, the opportunity to retreat and when you go back to your community, i have been a a big believer in that it makes our communities better. often times, the organizations that use our retreats, fill the cracks. >> i am ron swisher. thank you for joining us and go out and bd be restored in one of these retreats and come to one of our. our centers.

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