Losing the Map, Finding the Way Home: A Journey Back to the Heart of Christ through Story, Mystery and the Sacred Self
June 21, 2026 | Online
2pm to 5:30pm Central
with Valerie Dodge Reyna & Robert Rife
Through storytelling, reflection, music, journaling, silence, and dialogue, this retreat invites you into an honest and compassionate exploration of your own spiritual journey – the moments of awe and belonging, the ruptures and questions, the unraveling of certainty, and the quiet longing for a more authentic encounter with the sacred.
Many people have experienced Christian faith through structures of certainty, obligation, or survival, while still carrying a longing for contemplation, beauty, wonder, and Divine Mystery. Yet beneath what was inherited, there often remains a longing for something more contemplative, life-giving, and deeply true.
Drawing from contemplative Christianity, the wisdom of the mystics, and the sacredness of lived experience, spiritual companions and longtime friends Rob and Valerie will share their own unfolding stories along the edges of faith, suffering, awakening, beauty, and mystery – not as experts with answers, but as fellow travelers learning to remain present to what is most deeply true.
The retreat itself will unfold in an intimate interview-style format, as Rob and Valerie gently guide one another through the deeper movements of their own stories: early wonder, inherited spiritual maps, rupture, awakening, deconstruction, grief, mystery, and the slow recovery of the sacred self. Along the way, participants will be invited into personal reflection, journaling, contemplative practices, and breakout conversations that allow space for their own stories, questions, longings, and memories to emerge.
Rooted in the contemplative spirit that helped shape the Christine Center’s earliest foundations, this retreat is about recovering faith’s deeper heart – losing the rigid maps that no longer lead to life, and slowly finding our way back to the living heart of Christ through story, mystery, contemplation, beauty, and presence.
Together, we will gently explore:
-
- the spiritual maps we inherited
- the questions that refused to disappear
- the wounds carried through religion and life
- the deeper movements of awakening and transformation
- the rediscovery of the true self beneath fear, shame, and striving
- and the contemplative stream of Christianity that has always existed beneath the surface
This retreat honors the understanding that healing and awakening often emerge not by avoiding our wounds, but by moving through them – by way of the wound itself. Many of the mystics discovered that suffering, longing, uncertainty, and even spiritual unraveling can become sacred thresholds into deeper presence, compassion, truth, and Divine Mystery.
This gathering marks the beginning of an ongoing journey – the first in a continuing series of retreats exploring story, mysticism, contemplation, embodiment, spiritual transformation, and the sacred work of becoming fully alive.
A Message from Your Guides
Our time together is intended to become a kind of weaving – bringing together our personal stories, decades of study, contemplative practice, spiritual formation, teaching, and ministry experience, as well as our shared work of accompanying others on the spiritual journey.
Rather than offering a retreat built on fixed conclusions, we will gently guide participants into reflection, conversation, and honest exploration. Our facilitation is grounded in both lived experience and years of formal training, and contemplative practice.
Together, we will listen for the deeper threads running through our lives: the moments that have drawn us toward love, the questions that have shaped us, and the places where spirituality may have become difficult, confusing, or distant.
Rooted in the contemplative stream of Christianity and the wider Perennial Wisdom tradition, this experience will offer a safe and spacious place to explore the sacred arc of our own stories. We will serve as facilitators, teachers, and fellow travelers – holding the space with care, depth, humility, and reverence for what may emerge.
As you reflect on your own lived experience, this shared weaving will help shape what wants to unfold in the July Retreat, Following the Deeper Stream through the Wild Thread of Hope.
Your Guides for the Journey
Valerie Dodge Reyna, B.A., M.A.
Valerie Dodge Reyna is a spiritual director, transformational life coach, chaplain, teacher, writer, artist, and retreat leader whose work centers on creating spacious, compassionate environments where people can listen deeply, tell the truth about their lives, and encounter the sacred within their own stories.
Born in Chicago, now living in Grand Rapids, MI, Valerie holds a B.A. in Education and a Master’s degree in Spiritual Formation from Spring Arbor University. She served as a chaplain in both hospital and hospice settings, accompanying people and families through some of life’s most tender thresholds. She was trained in spiritual direction by the Dominican Sisters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and now maintains her own spiritual direction practice while also serving as part of a team of spiritual directors at Ascension Health.
Beyond her history of teaching spirituality in various settings, Valerie serves as a guide for students at the Center for Action and Contemplation. Her creative life continues to shape her vocation through leading retreats, artistic expression, writing, and contemplative practice.
Valerie has been featured in articles through the Center for Action and Contemplation and is currently co-authoring her first children’s book. At the heart of Valerie’s work is her own lived journey of healing, including the ongoing practice of recovering from codependency and people-pleasing, and learning that self-love is not selfish, but one of the most faithful ways to love others well.
Among the many roles she has held, Valerie’s most beloved is being mother to four adult children, mother-in-love to their spouses, and “Grandmama” to the bright lights housed in small bodies who call her their own.
You can learn more about her work at maneocollective.com.
Robert Alan Rife, B.A., M.A.
Robert was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is an ordained minister with the Evangelical Covenant Church, a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer & poet, speaker & retreat leader…and a recovering alcoholic. His undergraduate degree is in vocal-choral performance, and he holds a Master of Spiritual Formation and Leadership from Spring Arbor University.
Most of his professional life has been as Worship and Music Director for churches in Canada and the U.S. Currently, he lives in Edinburgh, Scotland working in musical, creative, and contemplative ways among the addiction-recovery community.
His fascination lies at the intersection of life, liturgy, theology, and the arts and how they encourage spiritual formation – who we are becoming.
Greatest achievements to date: 38-year marriage to his wife, Rae, and their two sons – Calum (35) and Graeme (30) and one grandson, Ciaran James.
Blogs: On the spiritual life – www.innerwoven.me
Poetry, Essays, Fragmentia – www.robslitbits.com