“…I found the guidance and the shared times of reflection and silence profoundly reached me and recalled me to the recognition of the presence of the divine which is around me, within me always. This has been a lasting influence.”
Pendle Hill Participant
“…I learned to leave aside striving and to accept that simply being can be enough, and provide both rest and enrichment,” wrote a participant in Pendle Hill’s 2020 virtual Kairos retreat, “Our world so needs more humans to be able to find the peace Francisco’s Kairos retreat offers: Spirit’s well we can return to and take with us into our lives.”
The Kairos experience these retreatants found so meaningful was led by Francisco Burgos, Pendle Hill’s Executive Director, and held virtually August 20-23, 2020. A substantial part of the funding was provided by the Elizabeth Ann Bogert Memorial Fund for the Study and Practice of Christian Mysticism (Bogert Fund), which is administered by the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas (FWCC Americas).
The annual Pendle Hill Kairos retreats have received such positive responses that the Bogert Fund has helped fund several of them, including in 2022. This year’s retreat is scheduled for July 29-31 and will take place in person on Pendle Hill’s campus in Wallingford, PA. Again led by Francisco Burgos, it will include “extended periods of intentional silence, contemplative reflection on Biblical texts, walking meditation, worship sharing, group chanting/singing to support centering prayer, and individual guidance.” The $1,000 grant from the Bogert Fund will support scholarships and program subsidies so the program is affordable to more potential participants.
The purpose of the Bogert Fund is to support the study and practice of Christian mysticism. Recognizing the rich variety of mystical experience within Christianity, the Bogert Fund understands the mystical element in Christianity to be that aspect of its belief and practices that relates to an immediate and direct sense of the presence of the Divine. The Bogert Fund seeks to further both experiential and scholarly exploration of Christian mysticism.
In 2022, the Bogert Fund also gave grants of $1,000 each to Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) for virtual Exploring Eco-Spirituality workshops and to Forward in Faithfulness for a Supporting Mystics workshop. Quaker Earthcare Witness seeks to engage new audiences and link eco-spirituality “to the realities of these pandemic times of climate crisis, economic inequality, threatened democracy, and structural racism in an accessible and embodied way.” Hayley Hathaway, QEW’s Communications Coordinator and an experienced workshop leader, will use the Bogert Fund grant to research the foundations of eco-spirituality, plan the workshop, create marketing materials, and offer the workshop virtually to Friends.
Forward in Faithfulness is a ministry of faithfulness, revitalization, and deep listening offered by Johanna Jackson and JT Dorr-Bremme, who carry a Letter of Introduction from Upper Susquehanna Quarterly Meeting in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The Supporting Mystics workshop they are planning with partial funding from the Bogert Fund will be offered initially to a network of some twenty younger Quaker mystics with whom they have worshiped and who carry gifts of healing, discernment, eldering, prophecy, gentleness, and service. The workshop is designed to encourage a mutually supportive sense of belonging and allow space for participants to share prayer requests and stories about their mystical experiences and practices, including those of transformation.
While all the 2022 grants went to Quaker organizations for experiential programming, the Bogert Fund also supports academic research related to Christian mysticism and provides grants to applicants of many faiths. In 2020 the Bogert Fund helped further research for a book on the mystic Thérèse of Lisieux. The grant recipient, a Sister of the Order of Julian of Norwich, wrote, “I was able to purchase several books which helped directly with this project…. I have been thrilled to find some excellent, very new French scholarship….” The literature she discovered proved useful in furthering the writing of her book.
The Bogert Fund was established in 1983 in memory of Elizabeth Ann Bogert who, while reading William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience, had a powerful, profound change of consciousness that transformed her life. Previously self-centered, she became sensitive to other’s needs, enrolled in a theological school, and became a Congregational minister and prize-winning painter of mystical scenes. Walter Houston Clark, one of her professors who became her counselor and friend, played a key role in founding the Bogert Fund and working with FWCC to set up its administration. Today, as from the Fund’s inception, a board of five members, three of whom are Quakers, makes decisions regarding grants at their annual meeting in May.
For information on applying for a grant, please see the brochure, available via a link from FWCC’s Our Work webpage. The deadline for 2023 grants is March 1, 2023. Please share this information with scholars, retreat leaders, or anyone you believe might be interested.