Thresholds:
A Sensous enounter with death
An In-Person Retreat
with
the rev. Vincent Pizzuto, Ph.D. & rachel gaunt, m.A.
Friday, september 25 – Sunday, september 27
Retreat Theme Throughout the course of human history, across all times and cultures, death has evoked fear and trepidation, no less than a sense of awe and deep mystery. Among the world’s religious and philosophical traditions death has been variously understood as ultimate liberation, personal salvation, and permanent ending. Many in Western culture today spend a lifetime avoiding death or denying it, despite its universal inevitability. Yet, given that death is as natural as birth itself, is it possible we might consider an encounter with our own mortality in a way that is not morbid but which helps us to live more richly, more fully, and more lovingly toward ourselves and others?
In this retreat, Fr. Vincent Pizzuto, PhD, and Rachel Gaunt, MA, will lead an intimate weekend exploring death as “threshold.” The aim of the weekend is not merely to ruminate about death as a concept but to encounter it in our bodies. That is, to explore how we ‘feel’ about death and how we might feel our way into the inevitability of our own mortality. By design, this retreat will be limited to 12 participants in order to facilitate a series of activities that each participant will be invited to encounter both individually and in small ‘cohorts.’ As “sensuous” encounters, these activities are intended to allow ample time for each retreatant to deepen their awareness and acceptance of their own mortality while engaging with small intimate cohorts to help process how an honest and compassionate embrace of death’s inevitability, opens us to a deep and unbound joy and gratitude for life itself.
The Rev. Vincent Pizzuto, PhD is Professor of New Testament Studies and Christian Mysticism in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco. He received his doctorate in New Testament Exegesis from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (2003) and has since published and presented internationally in the areas of New Testament christology, ecological discipleship, marriage equality, inter-religious dialogue, Christian mysticism and contemplative Christian spirituality. In 2018 he published his second book, Contemplating Christ: The Gospels and the Interior Life with Liturgical Press; translated in Spanish, Contemplar a Cristo: Los Evangelios y la vida interior, (Desclée de Brouwer) in January 2022. As an Episcopal priest Fr. Vincent serves as Vicar of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church and Retreat House in Inverness, California. Working for the advancement of contemplative Christianity, he has reinvigorated the mission and ministry of St. Columba’s through the introduction of contemplative eucharistic liturgies, public lectures, online courses, directed retreats, thought provoking sermons and online blog.
Rachel Gaunt, MA A native of England, Rachel holds a BA from Exeter University in English Literature and American Arts, together with an MA from Naropa University West in Oakland, CA, where she studied under cleric and author Matthew Fox, exploring World Religions and the intersection of Psychology, Spirituality and Sustainability.
For the last 20 years she has coached individuals and facilitated groups in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds. Increasingly her life experience - specifically being present with a number of people at the end of life - prompted her to explore the "End of Life" chapter more deeply. Rachel has a Death Doula training certification, sings at bedside for people who are dying with the Threshold Choir, and leads The Essential Question workshop at St Columba's annually, a workshop that asks the question, "What must I do to be at peace, so I can live presently and die gracefully?"
Rachel lives in Inverness with her husband Frank and is happiest when she is hiking the hills and beaches with a dog by her side.
