Reorient yourself for the new year through the Spiritual Growth Mission at Grace Lutheran Church’s upcoming “Reflect … Release … Renew” retreat. It’s on Saturday, Jan. 27, in Davenport.
The morning retreat — which will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at Grace Lutheran Church’s Pat Bell Hall, 1140 E. High St. — will feature speaker Chris McCormick Pries with the Vera French Community Mental Health Center in Davenport, according to a news release from Grace Lutheran. Refreshments also will be served.
Ms. McCormick Pries is a board-certified advanced registered nurse practitioner. She served as Vera French’s clinical director until her semi-retirement in 2020. Ms. McCormick Pries continues to work part-time at Vera French, seeing patients and mentoring graduate students in psychiatric/mental health nursing, the release said.
She also serves as the chair of the Diocese of Davenport Sexual Abuse Review Board. She’s a parish nurse at St. John Vianney in Bettendorf, adjunct faculty member at the University of Iowa School of Nursing and preceptor to physician assistant students at St. Ambrose University.
New Year replenishment
During the holidays, “we can deplete ourselves of energy, focus and purpose. We give to everyone else but ourselves,” Ms. McCormick Pries said. “As we move into the new year, it becomes important to pause, take an opportunity to replenish ourselves and then move through the five important stages that can reshape what we are doing and how we are thinking.”
Those five stages include: replenishing, reflecting, refocusing, recommitting and rejoicing.
At the retreat, Ms. McCormick Pries will help participants dive deeply into each stage and offer practical ways to fully implement them in their lives, according to the release. The event will offer everyone the opportunity to “give a gift to ourselves by looking inward, taking care of ourselves, recharging our batteries and filling ourselves with positive spiritual energy that will help carry us through the new year,” she said.
Admission to the retreat is free and open to everyone in the community, but participants are asked to register by calling Grace Lutheran Church at (563) 322-0769 or visiting GraceWelcomesYou.org.
