Retreat 2025

Scotland

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Annual Provincial Retreat

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The Wave of Prayer

2025 Annual Scottish Provincial Retreat

Our annual silent retreat provides an opportunity to be quiet and feel God’s presence. The photo above shows those who came to the 2025 retreat. It was a joy once again to be in the welcoming and comfortable setting of St. Mary’s Monastery, Kinnoull beside Perth between Tuesday 8th April to Thursday 10th April 2025.

Our leader was the Reverend Lara Dose, Rector of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Dunfermline in the Diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane.

Prior to ordination, she trained at Westcott House, University of Cambridge and completed an MA in Interfaith Dialogue through Heythrop College, University of London. In 2000, she was appointed the first Director of the National Network for the Arts in Health (NNAH).

NNAH was established to provide information and resources to the Arts in Health field, and to promote good practise within government and NGO’s at a local, national and international level.

A particular academic interest is ‘What psychological and physiological impact do the arts have on our human identity? How do the Arts strengthen our spirituality?’ This subject fuses professional experience and offers a perspective into how the church understands its mission and outreach.

Theme

Lara chose the theme 'Arts, Health and Spirituality: A Trinity for Physical and Mental Well-being'.

The overview of her theme was: What psychological and physiological impact do the arts have on our human identity? How do the Arts strengthen our spirituality? She will follow the usual pattern of four talks to expand the theme. The outline for them is:

Session One: Arts, Health, Spirituality

Session Two: Worship and the Arts

Session Three: Theology of Architecture and the Built Environment

Session Four: The Arts for Mission and Outreach

The retreat offered an opportunity for a time of quietness and renewal in the peace and calm of God’s holy presence. Lara's leadership and the atmosphere of the house certainly delivered on that promise.

We were taken through each session with care and there were opportunities to explore the content in much more detail as the spirit moved us. We were introduced to the findings of a report by the National Churches Trust - The House of Good:Health. It asserted that the UK's Churches are our 'National Help Service'. They estimate that churches help the NHS to the tune of around 8.4bn a year. Quite a remarkable figure that shows the value of churches and the spiritual and physical help they offer.

Wednesday afternoon is free time to explore the area or use as you wish. There is usually an opportunity to talk to the leader on a one to one basis during this time.

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Previous Retreats

Please take a look at the pages for the previous Retreats to get an idea of what they are like and to look at the photo-galleries. We hope those who were there will enjoy the memories they bring back and we also hope they will encourage those who weren’t there to make a date to come to the 2026 Retreat.