Following the Deeper Stream
Losing the Map and Finding the Way Home
In-Person and Online
July 31-August 2, 2026
with Valerie Dodge Reyna & Robert Rife
Many of us carry spiritual stories that are both beautiful and complicated. We remember wonder, belonging, and genuine encounters with the sacred, while also carrying questions, losses, disappointments, and inherited maps that no longer seem able to guide us.
Beneath that uncertainty, a deeper longing often remains: for a faith rooted in contemplation rather than certainty, mystery rather than easy answers, and transformation rather than performance.
This hybrid retreat invites participants into an honest and compassionate exploration of their spiritual journeys through storytelling, reflection, music, silence, journaling, contemplative practice, dialogue, prayer, liturgy, and engagement with the natural world. Whether joining onsite at the Christine Center or online from home, participants will gather as one retreat community.
Spiritual companions and longtime friends Val Dodge Reyna and Robert Rife will share their own unfolding stories along the edges of faith, suffering, awakening, grief, beauty, and mystery – not as experts with answers, but as fellow travelers learning to remain present to what is most deeply true.
Through an intimate interview-style format, Val and Rob will guide one another through the deeper movements of their lives: early wonder, inherited faith, rupture, deconstruction, longing, and the slow recovery of what is sacred within. Participants will be invited into personal reflection and shared conversation, creating space for their own stories, questions, memories, and hopes to emerge.
Drawing from contemplative Christianity, Christian mysticism, the Perennial Wisdom tradition, and the sacred imagination, we will explore the Christian story as a path of homecoming: a way of moving through wound, uncertainty, surrender, beauty, truth, and love.
This retreat honors the truth many mystics discovered: that healing and awakening often come not by avoiding our wounds, but by moving through them. Suffering, longing, and spiritual unraveling can become sacred thresholds into deeper presence, compassion, wisdom, and love.
Rooted in the contemplative spirit that helped shape the Christine Center’s earliest foundations, this retreat is an invitation to release rigid maps that no longer lead to life and to listen for the deeper stream beneath religion – the wild thread of hope woven through our stories and the living heart of Christ calling us home.
Program Highlights:
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- Explore the sacred arc of their own spiritual story
- Reflect on wonder, belonging, rupture, grief, awakening, and transformation
- Engage contemplative Christianity, Christian mysticism, and the Perennial Wisdom tradition
- Learn from mystics, contemplatives, poets, and storytellers
- Participate in storytelling, music, journaling, prayer, liturgy, silence, and contemplative practice
- Share meaningful dialogue with fellow participants, onsite and online
- Recover a deeper sense of the sacred self and the living heart of Christ
Explore the Christian story as a path of homecoming: a way of moving through wound, uncertainty, surrender, beauty, truth, and love.
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