Program Goals and Intended Participants

General Description - March 2007 Update

Search for Inner Peace through a Time for the Sabbath
- A Self Education Program

Many, if not most of us, grow up with a gnawing feeling that we are not living up to our full potential spiritually. In essence we are living as Pretend Self rather than living as Authentic or True Self. This leaves us feeling wounded. Often we feel dissatisfied not only in our relationship with self but also with God. We may even feel somewhat emotionally and spiritually deadened. This leaves us feeling alienated from God and self. We long to be healed, to be alive and to feel whole; we yearn for an ongoing practice of Sabbath. We long to undergo an inner transformation so that we can realize and experience our True Self. We also long to be reconciled with God so that we can truly experience the Divine existing within us.

Program Goals

The goal of Path of Inner Peace is to assist you on your spiritual journey to discover your True Self and to experience inner healing. The program is not a form of therapy in which an outer source of authority does something to you that brings about healing. Rather it facilitates self-learning in which you learn and discover for yourself new ways to tap into your own hidden creative inner resources and thereby bring about inner transformation, self-healing and reconciliation.
This educational program is designed to provide you with a structured program in which you not only have opportunity to undergo self-transformation but opportunity also to vividly experience the presence of Divine Spirit, the “living God” within so that reconciliation may occur.
Gradually as you discover your True Self you acquire the means to cope more effectively with the stresses of modern life. This enables you to choose and therefore to respond adaptively to your environment and its stressors rather than to react in a maladaptive-conditioned manner. Thus you will have more feelings of deep inner peace, joy and happiness.

Intended Participants

This program is designed for clergy and laity alike of all denominations who want to have an in-depth spiritual journey into self-discovery and growth. There are ample times of quiet solitude mixed with rich moments of sharing with a small group and a soul guide that is individualized for each person’s goals based upon where they are on their walk.

Details of Sabbath Retreat

March 2007 Update:

This Introductory Phase is a 4-Day retreat at the Intentional Growth Center on the beautiful grounds of Lake Junaluska, N.C. During the Sabbath Retreat you will become closely acquainted with your spiritual Guide and a small group of other fellow students who will constitute your Spiritual Listening/Sharing Group. Along with receiving an overview of the program you will participate in a series of experiences to familiarize you with the contents and methods of self learning used in the educational program and to help you continue your spiritual journey.

This retreat will help us all establish a daily ritual of quiet time to reconnect with our true selves, with the Holy Spirit, and with the Divine. It is the beginning of a course of inner study where each will be given the gift of a small group and a soul guide in the Wesley tradition. We will take advantage of modern technology to stay in touch in very cost-effective, heart-tender, artful, and soul enriching ways.

The Sabbath Retreat Path is intentionally set for the Fall so that we can integrate the beauty of the changing colors to reflect some of the inner changes that we hope will occur within ourselves. There will be many outdoor exercises planned to integrate the Anam Cara (Soul Companioning), Celtic style and help everyone enjoy God’s creation just as Jesus and St. Francis did. CEU: 2.0.

Details of the Various Sabbath Paths

March 2007 Update:

Discovery Path

(B) Basic Phase of 5 Months during which time you continue your Sabbath experience and learn the primary skills necessary to begin the process of self-exploration through your daily practices, your journaling and your telephonic sessions with your Guide and other members of your Spiritual Group. Cost: $100 per month CEU: 3.0

Pioneer Path

(C) Intermediate Phase of 5 months during which time you have the opportunity to learn in-depth ways to discover your many inner attributes that make up your wholeness. In this process expect to encounter many levels of resistance which you are challenged to overcome as you become Soul-centered and discover your True Self. You will continue your daily practices, your journaling and your telephonic sessions with your Guide and other members of your Spiritual Group. Cost: $100 per month. CEU: 3.0

Explorer Path

(D) Advanced Phase 5 months in which you explore exciting ways to fully integrate your True Self into your daily life with family and friends, at work and church/community service using the arts and music as an expression of God's creativity within your soul. You will continue your daily practices, journaling and sessions with your Guide and Group. Cost: $100 per month. CEU: 3.0

Faculty Update for 2007

Please click below to view the Biographical sketches of the Faculty:

www.pathofinnerpeacefaculty.blogspot.com

George's Story and Is This Program For Me?

Update for March 2007:

When a reporter interviews someone to get “the story”, there are always the five basic questions plus the follow-up questions. If you wanted to know if a program matched your interests, the answers to these questions might be helpful. But wonder if the reporter were interviewing Jesus and trying to get “the story” on what in his opinion happened to one Dr. George Barnard who grew up in a small mill town in rural North Carolina in the 1940’s? Would he answer the questions in modern day language or would he use ancient wisdom to again let the reporter become another apostle to spread the good news of how truth is Truth even in 2005? How would George’s story lead to a book of poetry and a soul guide that could bring new life into my ministry whether God calls me into a small cottage walk with him each morning or I am leading a large congregation?

The Mill Town Son

“There was once a very young son of a modest family in a North Carolina mill town whose father developed a dreaded illness. This son prayed every night that his father might be spared his life. But when his father died, the son left for a far and barren spiritual land. He and his loving mother worked very hard and he became a caring physician and psychiatrist. He married and God blessed him with several sons and daughters. However, something was missing in his life.
Over time one of his daughters went to the ‘near East’ and one of his sons went to the ‘Far East’ and they learned something more precious than gold. They taught their father how to pray in private that reminds me of something I used to say.
The father’s heart began to fail and his doctor told him to join a group of men to share his troubles. In this group were some ministers who shared with him the story of a son who went to a distant land and was feeding pigs and came to himself. This son rehearsed his ‘beg for forgiveness speech all the way home but never got to deliver it. When his own father saw him coming down the road, he ran out the door of his home, hugged, kissed, celebrated with his lost son who was now found.
Being a physician of the mind, upon hearing this story he began hearing it with his mind, heart and soul. He heard this sacred story as symbolic of our heavenly father welcoming us on a path of discovery of our true selves that we were created to be. He found the story in the earliest of scriptures which spoke of ‘male and female the Father created them in His image’. Once he began rediscovering his authentic Self, he was filled with joy. He then began to write poetry about his journey of self-discovery into wholeness. The friends in his men’s group encouraged him to let others read it and before long it became a book. And now he can’t help but want to share the joy that he feels in the form of poetry and with a guide of self-discovery, transformation, reconciliation with our true selves, and a peace that passes all our understanding.”

Is this Program something you have been looking for?

Are you feeling disconnected from you created self? Do you feel the world pulling you away from the created beauty of nature that lies all around you and within you? When is the last time you really stopped long enough to feel the smell of flowers all the way down in your soul? Or laid on your back and lost yourself in the passing clouds overhead or gotten so far out in the country that you could actually see the Milky Way?
This is a literal “Down to Earth” and “Back to Nature” program to help us all get back to our true nature as God created us so that we can find joy in the simple things of life. Dr. Daniel Robinson is a Franciscan trained Spiritual Guide who will join experienced ministers and retreat leaders Rev. Cliff Lyda, and Dr. William Barnard depending on the size of the class to help focus our senses within the nature that lies within and around us at Lake Junaluska in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.
Let our hearts be still and let God lead us by the still waters and let the beauty of the changing seasons of the Fall open our hearts to change. “Were not our hearts strangely warmed as we walked along with him on the road and he talked of the ancient scriptures with us?”

Resources

March 2007 Update:

1. In Search of Soul: Journey Toward Wholeness, George W. Barnard, M.D. (available through the educational program)
2. Soul Guide: Path of Inner Peace and Spiritual Transformation, George W. Barnard, (available through the educational program)
3. Quiet Prayer, Dr, J. Daniel Robinson, is available free as background reading and helpful for quiet centering prior to coming on the retreat on line: www.soulwalks.blogspot.com
4. Participant's preferred version The Holy Bible.