A 30 Day Retreat: A Personal Guide to Spiritual Renewal Paperback – May 3, 2010

I've recently finished reading "A 30 Day Retreat: A Personal Guide to Spiritual Renewal" (Paulist Press, 176 pages, paperback) by Fr. William Mills, a month-long introduction to the meditative reading of Scripture. The book's structure is optimized for daily devotionals. Each of the thirty short chapters begins with a short Biblical passage, followed by a couple of pages of reflections by Fr. Mills. These reflections combine personal anecdotes with spiritual insights, relatable stories with small chunks of theology. Each chapter concludes with "Food for Thought", self-probing questions that encourage practical application.Fr. Mills is gifted at revealing God in everyday experiences. In stories of Winnie the Pooh, Fr. Mills finds John the Baptist. In a long Starbucks he sees the beauty of Advent's expectation. And in the local news he sees the timeless stories of Scripture. Fr. Mills has an eye for the transcendent, but also a gift to describe it.In "30 Day Retreat", Fr. Mills introduces lectio devina, an ancient method of spiritual reading. Instead of skimming a chapter or two from the Bible, lectio devina requires a slow, repetitive reading of a short passage of Scripture, with contemplation saturated throughout. The deep meditation of lectio devina produces a conversion of the heart more than the head. While each chapter illustrates this practice, the methods of lectio devina are fully explained in the book's Appendix, as well.Interestingly, "A 30 Day Retreat" is published by a Catholic publishing house, despite being written by an Orthodox priest. These two traditional influences can be seen throughout the book, as Fr. Mill's reflects on the Mass and the sacraments, while concluding with a final chapter on Mary. A Catholic or Orthodox reader would enjoy these emphases, but the references may grate on a Protestant reader. Nevertheless, I would still recommend "A 30 Day Retreat" to Protestant friends as a good introduction to spiritual reading.If you want the words of the Bible to penetrate you deeper, I suggest exploring lectio devina. For a good introduction to this art of spiritual reading, read "A 30 Day Retreat" and have your heart transformed.

This book provides a practical approach to forging a daily habit of listening to God. The author, Fr. William C. Mills, uses common examples that readers can identify in their own lives. There is no necessity to go any place but one's own home for the thirty days of retreat. Furthermore, there is no requirement to pray a prescribed prayer, or sit in a special chair, or commit more than 30 minutes every day to reading a chapter. When you pick up this book, you feel like a good friend gives you suggestions to get you going, and then you decide how to get going by doing what feels right for you.The Introduction [1-9] makes suggestions about how to calm the mind to listen to the Word of God with the ears of your heart. The author's suggestions about breathing and short prayers have been tested by generations of Christians, and they work well for many people. After calming the mind, Mills invites readers to read the passage appointed for the day from the New Testament [Christian Scriptures], by savoring each word as if it were "...a delicious meal" [7]. He couples these ideas with an Appendix, "Lectio Divina" ["divine reading," 158-61], in which he provides further instructions about the practice of listening to God. I recommend that you read the Introduction and Appendix before beginning the 30-day retreat.Mills wears a variety of hats in this book. He is a tour guide, leading you to places that will seem new, but in reality they are spiritual places that you visit everyday, such as questions about how to listen to God while raising a family or earning a living. Another hat is that of a coach to give you strategies and motivation tips for listening to God every day. Mills also wears a teacher's hat, because he provides context for each passage from the Bible that he identifies. In addition, he recommends books [162] for readers to employ on day 31 and following--in other words, after they finish this 30-day retreat.Regardless the hat he wears, Mills is honest. Take, for example, the title for day 14 [73-8]: "Jesus irritates me!" Pretty honest title, I would say. The reading for the day is the story of the Gerasene demoniac in Mark's Gospel. Mills writes that Jesus irritates him "really bad" [74] ..."like poison ivy in the summertime. There is nothing worse than getting poison ivy in the summertime" [74].Mills has identified with the Gerasene people, who became very annoyed with Jesus when the demons that he exorcised entered their swine herd and drowned every last pig in the Lake of Galilee. Jesus might have done a great thing by freeing the man of the demons. However, Jesus ruined the favor of the Gerasene people when he killed their cash of pigs. At the end of the reading for day 14, Mills makes a comment that I consider exquisite:"If we read the gospel with an open mind and heart, we will feel just a bit uncomfortable because it is not always easy or convenient to turn the other cheek or to love people who really bother us, but that is in fact what the gospels say" [78].