CMER

Karen Canon

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CMER 2025: The Common Room

Photo Credit:  Patti Callahan Henry, author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis and Once Upon a Wardrobe

Dear CMER 2025 Attendees:

Announcing a new addition to the Retreat this year: The Common Room.

Imagine a visit to The Kilns in Oxford, England. It is the former home of C.S. Lewis, his brother Warnie, and for a too-short three-year marriage, the home of Joy Davidman, Mrs. C.S. Lewis. Across the hall from the Dining Room was the Common Room, a book-lined room with easy chairs, a writing desk, and a fireplace. If the walls could talk, they could relate many conversations about religion, news, and their creative work.

We have set aside a similar space for you at the Hideaway, albeit minus the smoky haze. The Common Room will be available around the clock for conversations, conviviality, and creativity.  Bring a handicraft from home or take advantage of puzzles and a pixel art project that will be there for you.  It will be a cozy atmosphere, replete with tea and chocolate. Hope to see you there!

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CMER 2025: A Wise Retreat

By Vincent van Gogh, Siesta, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.1

The feeding of the 5,000 is probably a familiar story to Christ-followers: the miraculous provision, the tender compassion, the life-giving teaching. It is within this narrative of teaching and training his disciples, of meeting the needs of the multitudes, that Jesus offers a remarkable invitation to come away with Him to a quiet place.

The word retreat comes from the Latin verb retrahere, which means to pull back, to withdraw. Sometimes, we need to step away from the day-to-day so that we can get a better view of where we are, where we are headed, and where we might need to make a course adjustment.

Your business is to fix his attention on the stream of immediate sense experiences. They find it all too impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Do remember you are there to fuddle him.2

So Screwtape counsels his nephew Wormwood, a demon in training. Parents, above all others, are immersed daily in the mundane. The daily needs, so familiar, can easily eclipse the unfamiliar. From time to time, we all need a “pause that refreshes.”3

As you prepare for CMER 2025, recall Jesus’ invitation and take a few moments to consider what is drawing you to this Retreat and to prayerfully offer up these needs and desires to the Great Provider, God Himself.

Consider also how reachable you will be while on retreat and what role technology will be permitted to play. It is good advice to—literally and figuratively—close the tabs on your browser. Turn off the phone. Ask, “What else?” is needed so that you may find rest, hear a fresh revelation, and be fully present in the gift of the time we will share. Prepare to enter into the silence and the conversations through which God may speak to you at the retreat.

  1. Mark 6:31b ↩︎
  2. Lewis, C.S. Screwtape Letters ↩︎
  3. Karon, Jan. At Home in Mitford ↩︎

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CMER 2025: Folksong

Fishing Trip, Norman Rockwell, 1919. Public Domain

My family will be together for the holidays. We will enjoy talking about good meals, board games, family vacations, and folksongs; just a few shared memories that knit us together as a family.

In a few short weeks, attendees from eleven states will gather at The Hideaway for CMER 2025. Nearly a third are new to the retreat. We will sing a folksong. It is our prayer that this time of singing together, laughing, and learning a new song or recalling an old favorite, will be the first of many shared memories that we will forge over the weekend.

Do you want a sneak peek? Name that tune in five words: “Well now, take down your…”

We are looking forward to singing with you!