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 moments of wonder, belonging, and genuine encounter with the sacred. We also carry questions, losses, disappointments, and places where the maps we inherited no longer seem able to guide us.
Yet beneath the uncertainty, there often remains a deeper longing: for a faith rooted in contemplation rather than certainty, in mystery rather than easy answers, in transformation rather than performance. A longing to encounter the Divine in a way that is alive, authentic, and true.
This hybrid retreat invites participants into an honest and compassionate exploration of their spiritual journeys through storytelling, reflection, music, silence, journaling, contemplative practice, dialogue, and engagement with the natural world. Whether joining onsite at the Christine Center or online from home, participants will gather as one retreat community, sharing in a common journey of exploration, discovery, and transformation.
Spiritual companions and longtime friends Valerie 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, Valerie and Rob will guide one another through the deeper movements of their lives: early wonder, inherited spiritual maps, rupture, deconstruction, awakening, longing, and the slow recovery of the sacred self. Along the way, participants will be invited into personal reflection and shared conversation, creating space for their own stories, questions, memories, and longings to emerge.
Together, we will 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 recovery of the sacred self beneath fear, shame, and striving
- The contemplative stream of Christianity that has always flowed beneath the surface
We will look at the Christian story as a path of homecoming: a way of recovering the sacred self.
As our stories unfold, we will follow their deeper threads into the wisdom stream that has moved through Christianity for centuries. Drawing from contemplative Christianity, Christian mysticism, and the Perennial Wisdom tradition, we will explore the spiritual journey not as a path of certainty or religious performance, but as a living movement through wound, longing, surrender, beauty, truth, and love.
With the hopeful wildness and sacred imagination of Martin Shaw as one of our companions, we will look at the Christian story as a path of homecoming: a way of recovering the sacred self, learning to remain present to mystery, and discovering the living heart of Christ beneath inherited maps that may have grown too small.
This retreat honors the truth that healing and awakening often emerge not by avoiding our wounds, but by moving through them. Many mystics discovered that suffering, uncertainty, longing, and even spiritual unraveling can become sacred thresholds into deeper presence, compassion, wisdom, and love.
Together, we will listen for the deeper stream beneath religion, the wild thread of hope woven through our stories, and the invitation to become more fully alive. Through teaching, music, prayer, liturgy, silence, journaling, contemplative practice, small-group dialogue, and the natural world, we will create space for what wants to emerge next in our lives and on our spiritual path.
Rooted in the contemplative spirit that helped shape the Christine Center’s earliest foundations, this retreat is ultimately an invitation to release the rigid maps that no longer lead to life and to find our way home again – through story, mystery, contemplation, beauty, and the living presence of Christ.
Program Highlights
-
- Explore the sacred arc of your own spiritual story
- Reflect on wonder, belonging, rupture, grief, awakening, and transformation
- Engage with contemplative Christianity, Christian mysticism, and the Perennial Wisdom tradition
- Discover the deeper stream beneath the surface of Christianity
- Learn from the wisdom of mystics, contemplatives, poets, and storytellers
- Explore the work and imagination of Martin Shaw
- Participate in storytelling, music, journaling, contemplative practice, prayer, liturgy, and silence
- Engage in meaningful dialogue with fellow participants
- Experience the retreat as one shared community, whether onsite or online
- Recover a deeper sense of the sacred self and the living heart of Christ
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