Reconnect With the Sacred Story of Your Life Through Writing
What if writing was about sacred listening?
What if your own story, just as it is, was the gateway to spiritual insight?
This retreat is an invitation to slow down, tune in to your Divine Heart, and explore the sacred unfolding of your life—one word at a time.
Discover Writing as Spiritual Practice
Guided by spiritual director and author Colette Lafia and theologian and author Debie Thomas, we’ll gather at the serene Mercy Center in Burlingame to explore writing as a contemplative, soul-listening path.
Through poetry, sacred texts, embodied prayer, and silence, we’ll meet the Divine within the experiences of our daily lives.
During this retreat, you will:
- Reclaim writing as a sacred, integrating practice
- Listen deeply to the stirrings of your body, heart, and soul
- Unearth the sacred within ordinary moments
- Write in community with joy and encouragement
- Leave with a renewed sense of clarity and your true voice
What Makes This Retreat Special
- This isn’t a retreat to make you a better writer. It’s a retreat to help you remember that you already carry the sacred within you, and writing is one way it longs to speak.
- What makes this retreat special isn’t just the practices, it’s the presence.
- Colette and Debie hold space with reverence and warmth. They are here to companion you gently into deeper intimacy with the Divine and your own inner journey.
- Their unique blend of contemplative practice, spiritual direction, and soulful writing creates an atmosphere of safety and courage, where your truth can emerge with grace.
- This retreat honors both the silence and the story, the questions and the clarity, the ache and the awakening.
What You'll Experience
Our time together will follow a gentle rhythm of inner and outer nourishment:
- Guided Writing Sessions: Prompted by poetry, music, and sacred texts to awaken your inner voice.
- Contemplative Practice: Silent prayer, embodied meditation, and spaciousness for spiritual reflection.
- Sacred Sharing Circles: Compassionate listening and soul-deep connection without pressure or judgment.
- Embodied Rituals: Simple movement and somatic practices to ground your insight and awaken your senses.
- Rest and Renewal: Unstructured time to walk the labyrinth, wander the gardens, or simply be.
This Retreat is For You If...
- You feel something stirring inside you and sense it’s time to listen
- You long to bridge your spiritual path and creative voice
- You feel drawn to write but want more support and space
- You’re navigating grief, transition, or change and seek meaning
- You want to deepen your contemplative practice through writing
- You’re craving sacred space and spiritual companionship
Whether you’re an experienced writer or haven’t picked up a journal in years, you’re welcome here. All that’s required is an open heart and a willingness to listen.
Explore the Story of Your Life
- Identify & Savor Your Experiences: Reflect on the moments that have shaped you and how they speak to your spiritual journey.
- Write to Inspire Your Life: Allow what you write to spark a fresh vision of what’s possible, guiding you onward with renewed insight.
- Embrace the Unwritten: Welcome what’s still unfolding—questions, longings, uncertainties—and let the writing process become a gentle companion as you navigate what comes next.
Your Guides
Together, Colette and Debie create sacred containers of trust, creativity, and grace.
Colette Lafia is an award-winning author, spiritual director, and retreat leader. As a graduate of the Living School, through the Center for Action and Contemplation, Colette has a passion for the contemplative path. She has worked in the spiritual formation programs at Mercy Center Burlingame and is a commissioned Centering Prayer presenter. Her most recent book is The Divine Heart: Seven Ways to Live in God’s Love, which received a 2022 Nautilus Book Award. Her forthcoming book, Leaving the Shore (December 2025), is a collection of poetry, short prose, and contemplative practices.
Debie Thomas is a sought-after speaker on Scripture, faith, writing, and spiritual practice. She holds a master’s degree in English literature from Brown University and an MFA in creative writing from The Ohio State University. A columnist and contributing editor for The Christian Century, Debie is also the author of Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories, and A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity. She is currently a seminarian at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Debie and her husband have two grown children and live in northern California. Learn more about Debie Thomas
Our Sanctuary: Mercy Center Burlingame
Located on a quiet hill in Burlingame, California, Mercy Center offers tranquil grounds, contemplative gardens, and sacred space for prayer and reflection, just minutes from San Francisco.
Retreat Logistics
Dates: Friday, August 8 at 5:30 PM (dinner)
to Sunday, August 10 at noon (lunch)
Location: Mercy Center Burlingame
2300 Adeline Drive, Burlingame, CA
Tuition
- Single Room (2 nights + meals): $520
- Commuter (no overnight): $240
- RSM Fee: $416
Includes all sessions, materials, and meals.
Registration Deadline: July 25, 2025
Let the Sacred Unfold
“You do not need to be a writer. You only need to be willing to listen to your soul, your breath, and your becoming. Writing will meet you there.” — Colette & Debie
Come as you are. Bring your pen and your prayers. Let’s write our way into the sacred together.
