Dwelling and Delighting: Toward a Flourishing Community
June 14-16, 2023
“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.”
Psalm 37:3
The most profound things in life are often profoundly simple. All human beings are embodied and located in time and place. All human beings are created for relationships and community. All human beings crave meaning and the deep awareness that their life is acknowledged as meaningful and purposeful. All human beings long for wholeness. All human beings hope – against all the struggle and suffering of life – that their life has contributed to the meaning and flourishing of the next generation. In our post-modern and post-Christian culture the previous statements cut “against the grain” of the cultural narrative. Yet, given the perspective of a larger and more inclusive frame of reference, these statements would be considered as basic, as the given condition of human existence, as universal and the product of “common sense.”
The C. S. Lewis Study Center is providing a time and place to think about these basic things in the context of our conflicted cultural moment. How can we dwell fruitfully? How can we delight in the givenness of our embodied existence in time and place with hopefulness and faithful living? How can our lives be spent in the cultivation of deep faithfulness, rooted in gratitude, to the God of grace and love who meets us in the Incarnate One? How can we, as people of the “Way,” open ourselves to the Spirit of life, creativity, and healing community, in such a way that we bring Glory to God?
The conference structure is simple. We will explore the meaning of dwelling, the significance of dwelling in the land, particularly as it relates to our broken and fragmented world. The furrows of this theme will be engrained in our times of meditation, formal discussions, personal reflection, enjoyment of the arts, and even in the commonplace activities of walking to and fro, dining together, and watching the sun set. In essence, borrowing from our friends, Every Moment Holy (Rabbit Room Press).
Delight and longing, community and beauty, generative hope and the celebration of life together will be nurtured in fellowship, guided conversation, and the celebration of the arts. No one can “prompt” wonder to “appear,” but we can seek to cultivate our openness to the wonder that re-creates and enkindles living hope in the future that is in God’s gracious hands.
The C.S. Lewis Study Center invites you to join us in the exploration of the profound simplicity of the flourishing life rooted and nurtured by a loving God who comes to us in Jesus Christ and who calls us to Himself through the creative movement of the Holy Spirit.
Post-Conference Session, Friday, June 16, 1-4 pm
Independent school educators of faith—and especially boarding school faculty—labor in immersive communities that, day in and day out, wrestle with how to create and maintain flourishing school environments.
As believers, they wrestle too with how to dwell and delight in a strange land. This post-conference session, for independent boarding and day school educators, will pick up on the content of the conference and suss out takeaways for returning to their respective institutions and the new academic year. Retired faculty are also warmly invited to stick around for the follow-up session.
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