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at a retreat just two weeks ago in tahoe with my methodist man from the fairfield church and while i was there, hugh burrows emailed me , and he said he wanted to do the next program on spiritual retreat, he did not know that i was at a spiritual retreat, in fact he was going to host the program this morning but he had to go out of town, so he asked me to do it so i'm delighted to have this, dr. thomas powell who is over at the parish retreat. tell us a little bit about the retreat center and the work that you do. >> the place was founded in 1925 in the jesuits at santa clara university which was santa clara college back then decided that

they wanted to have a place where at that time, men could go on retreat, it wasn't until the 1960s that women started coming, so 1925, through febres seventh, the first mass was celebrated at the retreat house, in the one building that was there and the house still stands and that is where my office is, so since then, literally thousands and thousands of people have come on retreat and normally there's retreats that start on friday and they conclude shortly after lunch on sundays. the silent retreats, retreats for talking, for men, for women, for both, that is a lot of different topics, and i have been with the center two years last friday. just celebrating 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, catholics, protestants, muslims, it is open to anyone. obviously because it is a jesuit retreat center, the society of jesus, the focus is primarily christian but we have retreats for instance for homeless men and women, we have retreats for members from l.a., a lot of different variety. >> tell us the location again because you had some beautiful pictures, tell us where it is located. >> it is funny you ask, it is in los altos, not exactly the poorest town in the area but as i mentioned, the property was purchased in 1925 at the time, so we have 38 that have views in

every location, it is a beautiful location. places where people can be quiet and meditate, and also places where you can have meetings and it is a welcoming environment. >> tell us a little bit about your background. >> my focus was on liberation theology when i wrote my dissertation, i did my research in peru. >> that is where it started, didn't it? >> indeed. >> and it came here with the theology and liberation. >> you will find that it has gone into many dominations, many areas, the whole theme of liberation theology. >> we will come back to that as well as the spiritual retreats, thank you for being with us, tom. please join us on our next

segment, dr. thomas powers of the jesuit center in los altos.

>> welcome back to mosaic, we have been speaking with dr. thomas powers of the jesuit center and our focus is on spiritual retreats, tell us about what a spiritual retreat

would be like. >> well, the jesuit retreat center is rooted in the spirituality of saint ignatius loyal love, the founder of the jesuits and it is a very specific spirituality and it is difficult to actually pinpoint it to just a few words but one of the things that in ignatius always said, find god in all things. so his focus was to have people not just be private prayers , but people who prayed and went out into the world to change the world. to bring god to other people, to do good. >> excellent, and i think i mentioned to you at our retreat as a methodist man, we not only want to have spiritual growth and development, we want to also be active in our world, so that is how you see the purpose of the retreat. >> absolutely, in light of jesuit spirituality, it is meaningless if you just go and nothing happens that you take

with you when you leave the property, 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 be a focus to go out into the world. i don't know if you know about the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius. >> somewhat, i was trained by the jesuit. >> the university of san francisco. it would be a 30 day silent retreat, i have done that twice so i can tell you it is not impossible. not checking your email. you have to be careful, in fact, to tell you the truth, when we do the spiritual exercise at the jesuit retreat center, we asked people to turn in their phones and computers and most of them don't want them back when they are done. but, the whole idea was that it is a very intensive

experience where you are able to slow down and you are able to truly reflect on how it is god is in your life and how god is calling you, to live your life. and one of the things that is so important is at the very end of the spiritual exercises, ignatius wrote, love is shown more in deeds than in words. so it is great to be able to say the right stuff but if you are not doing the right stuff, it is not working. >> i think that the fact, the transfiguration, of course peter wants to stay there, but of course when they come down, they cannot cast out the evil. >> good point. % translation said it takes prayer and fasting, but i offered to be in solitude, to strengthen us out in the world. >> right. it is an unusual

experience and most people are not going to do a 30 day retreat but also spiritual exercises are possible to do over a number of months, where you are meeting with a spiritual director weekly and we do that at the retreat center also. so, we have a date retreats, 30 day retreats, the weekend retreats extend from september through june, the last retreat is this coming weekend and it is a retreat for women in recovery. >> that is excellent. have you met some of the facilitators? >> i know them all. in fact, i work with my staff and the jesuit staff, they do a lot of retreats, but also we bring in people from the outside that are good at particular topics, and just before we came on, i got a call from one of the bishops who is going to do a retreat for us next year. >> i just got some notes that i

had taken that i want to share with you, just a few of them, john wesley asked the development of their classes and they broke it down to image management, habit formation, self-deception, these are some of the questions that we look at in the last day of our retreat. am i honest about all of my acts and words, do i exaggerate? can i be trusted? am i self-pity or self-justifying? and have it -- habit formation, and my enjoying prayer, do i pray about the money i spend, and self-deception is am i defeated at any point of my life? am i jealous, irritable, touchy, and if i am, what am i doing about it? is there anybody that might

fear, disown, hold a resentment toward or disregard, and do i complain constantly and is christ real to me? what do you think of those? >> it is interesting, one of the things you learn in these spiritual exercises, the thing called the examination of conscious and every one is asked to stop a couple times a day and the questions you just posed are very much the questions people are asked to posed to themselves. i would say, where was it that you found god, or where was it that you might have felt the absence of god and why? or i do it in a physical way, i say, are you pushing god away or telling god to come closer? it is a good habit to get into, because you take the part of the day that preceded you, and

let's just stop and look at that for a moment. in our busy lives, that can be really important because we can go the whole day without even thinking about it. >> what is also challenging is to ask this in a group and to have confidence, but sharing those questions with each other, it is not just individual growth but collective. >> right. one of the other things we do at the retreat center is a peer program, we have one of the original jesuits of ignatius loyola and ignatius said he did the exercises better than anyone else, so that was a pretty big compliment and that teaches people to give the exercises . >> well, thank you tom, i'm looking forward to coming to that center, thank you for being

with us. please join us in the next two segments with mike carr who is over at the center.

>> welcome back to mosaic, if you have been with us, we have been talking about spiritual retreats, but where do we go for these retreats? there are many places in california and mike carr is here to talk about those locations, tell us about your places. >> sure, so united camps conferences and retreats, and what we do for a living and have done for almost 45 years is to manage and operate camp conference and retreat centers throughout california actually, so our customers come to our facilities to really unplug, relax, look for a sacred space

and as you know, retreating means something different to everyone. >> that is true, we mentioned earlier about restoring and revitalizing, but also people in recovery, people who are seeking other kinds of issues that they need to deal with, so that is available at your centers also? >> yes, the types of programs, retreat programs that i usually attend can be very spiritual in nature, but retreats can also be movement, it can be dance. it can be singing, hiking, i think really the term retreat needs to seek a safe haven, and for some people, just to feel the earth beneath their feet is really important, to just get away from their normal daily activities and to engage with others, and

maybe that is there retreat, or maybe it is to really explore their spiritual experience while they are at one of our facilities. many of the programs that attend our facilities are led by a group leader, so we have many types of programs that come through from youth programs, we have family programs, we have men's retreats, women's retreats, there's many different types of retreats. what we are really able to do at our facilities is to provide the behind-the-scenes operations and to help lead these retreats, so they aren't distracted in what their focus is and what they are there to further, whether it is to further themselves spiritually or they might be there to be with an organization and to accomplish larger goals with that organization. >> i've heard you've been doing it a long time, how many years now?

>> uccr has been around for almost 45 years and i have been involved since the mid-80s, so during that time i have seen a variety of groups come through. i've seen yoga retreats, i've seen tai chi, we've even had retreats that focus on laughing, laughing just opens up the spirit and opens you up physically, so we are exposed to a lot and our staff that manages our facilities, they have this opportunity to experience a lot of these retreat types that come through. and we have quite a long staff retention, and i think it's because the variety of these wonderful groups and people that come through that they get to serve. >> and it's fascinating where you began. >> right, very interesting story. it was a group of bay

area pastors and in the 60s, they 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 maybe a retreat center, a conference center or campus center that they were using for their own retreats. 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, but these beautiful properties, 800 acres, 600 acres, 1000 acres, beautiful properties. as they got to know each other, they came up with a business idea, why don't we start to use each other's facilities, why don't we move to each other's facilities. so they started that and they said, why don't we open these beautiful places up to the public? everybody needs a retreat, everybody needs to get away, just get away from your normal life and find something different, so this started.

>> throughout california, let's name some of those places. >> well, the conference center in aptos, california, pilgrim pines conference center which is in southern california, and speaking of dr. tom powers, with the jesuit retreat center, they also have another retreat center in the sierras called jesuit retreat center of the sierras. that is right outside auburn, and there's another one right across the bay, westminster retreat in alamo. currently we manage 13 different properties, so we have upwards of hundreds of thousands of retreats that come through our facilities every year. >> where are you located? >> petaluma, the first couple years, they were in glide memorial church, very historic, religious center really. and

they moved across the bay later in the 70s and we have just kind of continued moving north, we always try to stay central to all of our facilities. we ourselves in our organizations feel strongly about staff retreats, so we get a large staff together several times a year to talk about business but we also slow down and give our staff opportunity to relax. >> you were there in the early 60s then, kind of in the mid 60s and they have a new biography out that is exciting, be on the possible. so, they probably didn't know much about you then but i'm sure they heard about you. >> yes, that was our genesis point point >> very good, i look forward to going to one of those centers, i was at tahoe, this effort center

. that is not connected, is it? >> no, but it is a beautiful center, i imagine you and your peers have attended some of our conferences and facilities. >> i recognized many of those you mentioned, so let's come back and talk about those locations in the area and talk about those retreats. we have been talking with mike carr, welcome.

>> welcome back to mosaic, we have been speaking about the spiritual retreats with mike carr, what are the reasons for retreats? >> yes, thank you, really what we have filtered out is that there's five basic reasons why people like to retreat and need to retreat, and the first one is really to disconnect, and i think you and i touched base about that a little bit earlier this morning, just unplugging from everything. i don't know if you have heard the phrase unplug but there's the unplug which is unplug your phones and your computers. to get away from that . and there's the term unpack, so when you come to our facilities, there's the physical unpacking your bag, but then there's that unpacking, you are away from all of those plugged in things, it is time to really unpack, and find

something new . you have an opportunity to find something new. the second part is connect. so you disconnect from that, but when you are at a retreat center, the best thing to do is to connect, people come to sometimes connect with themselves, they are disconnected and now they need to connect with themselves and obviously they are there to connect with other people as well. community and team building as well. at retreats, people often sit and share and laugh, they might hike together, they might, often they sing together, they might go out and play volleyball or shoot hoops together or something like that. >> they find out some things about each other. >> exactly, that is one of the most important things, when you unplug from that and you are in a retreat setting, your focus changes and you get to know yourself and you get to know others better. accomplish goals,

groups come to our facilities to accomplish goals, that is usually furthering the mission of why they are there, whether it is individual or a group that needs to accomplish and further their mission. and of course r&r, rest and relax. and to have time during your retreat if you're doing some group processing, make sure that you are making time to nap, take a hike , again, they are unplugged, this is an opportunity for them to learn more about themselves and learn more about the others they are with. >> i think we touched upon that to a certain extent but it is great to hear those reasons why we go on retreats, and dr. thomas powers, which i mentioned that he not only was a jesuit but of course the first pope elected was the jesuit, so pope

francis, so we commend them in that respect, as he not only of course has been emphasizing retreats and solitude, but also involved in the world and concerned about the poverty in the world and injustice and inequity . so again, when we do all those things, disconnect, build community and the things you mentioned, we want to go back into the world and be able to give what we experienced. >> absolutely, i think retreats, the opportunity to retreat and when you go back to your community, i have been a big believer and i've been saying this for decades, it makes our communities better and often times the organizations that use our retreats as organizations fill the cracks. >> thank you mike. thank you for joining us and go out and be renewed and restored in one of those retreats and come to one of those centers.

i don't ever see anyone coming out to maintenance anything, so it's very scary for me because i have everything i love in this home. so, we've now implemented drone technology. how is that safe for me? it enhances the inspection, so it allows us to see things faster. your safety is the most important, and if you're feeling unsafe, that's not okay. it doesn't feel like that in our hearts. i mean, it's worrisome. [dog barks] [dog barks]

♪♪ ♪♪ dreams begin here. welcome to the goodnight club. residents are sheltering in place after somebody shot a police officer in hillsboro.