Health and Community: January 2010, Boarbank Hall, Cumbria

The fourth in our Health and Salvation series of retreats for healthcare workers took place at Boarbank from 11th-16th January. The theme was ‘Health and Community’, and we explored this through talks and discussions and also through film, in the context of shared prayer, meals and social activities. The group included doctors, nurses, lecturers and hospital chaplains, both lay and religious, sharing among them an enormous wealth of experience. As usual, we celebrated Morning, Evening and Night Prayer and Mass daily, joining the Boarbank community where possible, but celebrating our own Masses together as a group. Fr David Ryder kindly acted as chaplain for the week; we are very grateful to him and all the priests in the group for the thought-provoking sermons.

The talks began with scriptural and philosophical reflections on the idea of community. Fr Dixie Taylor’s talk ‘Community in the New Testament’ first prepared the Old Testament background before identifying what was distinctive about the community and communities that grew out of the life of Christ and the mission of the early Church. Sr Margaret Atkins spoke on ‘Community and hospitality’, exploring the historical link between hospitality and healthcare and contrasting more and less personal, and more and less universal, understandings of community. We then welcomed visitors with practical experience of very challenging types of community life. Mr John Sargent is the National Coordinator for the L’Arche communities and he presented a visually stunning, and very thoughtful reflection on the joys of sharing community life with the educationally handicapped, and the difficulties of sustaining the idealism of L’Arche. Diego and Michael from the Cenacolo community in Dodding Green introduced the group to the ideals and practice of Cenacolo, where recovering addicts live a strict and demanding communal life of work and prayer; the speakers also shared the stories of their own lives, with great courage and honesty, especially when speaking a foreign language. Professor George Giarchi, who teaches Social Care in the University of Plymouth, with a particular focus on care of the elderly, spoke with great energy, enthusiasm and humour on the communal and personal dimensions of care. Finally, two of our ‘locals’, Helena Allingham, who nursed in Marymount for ten years and now manages the Daycare Centre for the Alzheimer’s Society in Kendal, and Christine Shovelton, a resident in Marymount, spoke about making connections between and communicating within people from their different experience. It was a lively and thought-provoking session with which to finish.

In addition to the talks and discussions, we also watched the film ‘Witness’, which presented the clash between the traditional and innocent society of the Amish and the worst of the the modern world. Several of us ventured on a slippery but beautiful walk up Hampsfell, and were fortified after this by lunch in the Cavendish Arms. Others visited Grange and Cartmel, or just took time to relax and be quiet. The fiercely fought and hilarious on-going table tennis tournament, with our otherwise mild chaplain as a leading spirit, was a feature of the week. In the evenings, Compline around the fire led into conversation that continued discussion of community in all its aspects, as well as putting it into practice. On the last evening we invited members of the Boarbank Community to join us in a farewell party. It was a great joy to welcome back so many old friends to this week, and to welcome several new participants. We hope and pray that they will be rested and restored for the difficult and valuable work that they do, and that the friendships fostered here may continue to support them through the year.