Upcoming Events

SOAKED IN LOVE:
The 18th ANNUAL EVELYN UNDERHILL QUIET DAY
Evelyn Underhill described the Retreat House at Pleshey in a letter to her spiritual director Baron Friedrich von Hugel as follows: "The whole house seemed soaked in love and prayer…(the place) cured solitude and gave me at last really the feeling of belonging to the Christian family…I lost here my last bit of separateness and wish for anything of my own and gained a wholly new sense of the realness and almost unbearable beauty of Christian life." Using slide images of the house and grounds at Pleshey (a village in Essex), participants will reflect on the effect of this place on Underhill's life and writing, and on their own special places of retreat.

The Quiet Day will be held June 16, 2007 from 9-3:30 p.m. at Sayre House on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral and will be guided by Donna Osthaus, President of The Pilgrim's Guide and designer of two Underhill pilgrimages to Europe. For further information contact Kathleen.Staudt@gmail.com in April.

Recent Events

New Book
A new edition of the first biography of Evelyn Underhill has been released. The Life of Evelyn Underhill: An Intimate Portrait of the Groundbreaking Author of Mysticism by Margaret Cropper includes a new foreward by EUA president, Dana Greene.

See our bookstore for ordering information.

New Doctoral Dissertation
Catholic University of America student Stephanie Ford has written "Evelyn Underhill's Mystical Theology in the Light of the Feminist Critique of Grace Jantzen.

The Annual Evelyn Underhill Day of Quiet Reflection

The Praying Life - A Day of Quiet Reflection in honor of Evelyn Underhill Washington National Cathedral, Saturday June 21, 2003 - 9:00-3:30

This annual day of quiet used the works and ideas of Evelyn Underhill as starting points for a gathering that included periods of silent prayer, times of guided meditation and sharing, and time to enjoy the Cathedral and its grounds as places of prayer. Our time together included noon worship at the Cathedral.

Leaders:

Deborah Smith Douglas has degrees in literature and law, and is trained in spiritual direction. A laywoman in the Episcopal Church, she leads retreats and quiet days in the USA and Britain. She is the author of The Praying Life: Seeking God in All Things (Morehouse 2003), and, with her husband David Douglas, of the forthcoming Pilgrims in the Kingdom: Travels in Christian Britain (Upper Room, 2004). Her articles on prayer and spirituality appear frequently in "Weavings". She and David live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and are the parents of two college-age daughters.

Milo Coerper is an Episcopal priest and a lawyer. He also is a Benedictine oblate and a patron of the World Community for Christian Meditation. He is a member of the council of the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral in the United States, and a voluntary chaplain at Washington National Cathedral.

Kathleen Henderson Staudt works as a teacher, poet and spiritual director at a number of institutions in the Washington Theological Consortium and the DC area. She teaches at Virginia Theological Seminary, Wesley Theological Seminary, and the University of Maryland, College Park. She has offered retreats and workshops at the Washington National Cathedral and at area churches, including the annual Evelyn Underhill Day of Quiet offered at the Cathedral each year in June. She is the author
of At the Turn of a Civilization: David Jones and Modern Poetics, published in 1994 by University ot Michigan Press. A volume of her poetry, Annunciations: Poems out of Scripture, was published in 2003 by the Edwin Mellen Poetry Press.

Tour: Evelyn Underhill in Tuscany, Kensington, Umbria and the Retreat House at Pleshey - May 28, June 12, 2003 with the Rev. Lindsay Spendlove, Colchester, Church of England and Donna Osthaus, The Pilgrim's Guide. (See schedule and photo from 2000 tour.)

Italy was an essential part of Evelyn Underhill's mystical journey: "[Florence] has taught me more than I can tell you: a sort of gradual unconscious growing into an understanding of things." After exploring this Italy with insights from Underhill's travel journals, the group will return to her everyday life of London, then cap the experience with a three-day rest and retreat at Underhill's much-loved Pleshey in a small Essex village. (Transportation/land from Washington, D.C.: $3,495 / Land only: $2,850) For more details, contact: Pilgrim's Guide, 7481 Huntsman Blvd., #105, Springfield, VA 22153, or by e-mail.

"Pilgrim's Party" is a two-person play bringing together Evelyn Underhill (played by Janet Beddoe) and the wife of T.S. Eliot (played by Robert Nobleman). This one hour drama focuses on three days from 1921, 1931, and 1941. For performance schedule or booking this play, contact: Roberta Nobleman, 110 Beacon St., Dumont, NJ, 07628, or by phone at 201-384-6181.

Further performances are planned. If you are interested in scheduling a performance during this period, please call Roberta Nobleman at 201-384-6181 or e-mail seesawdancejb@aol.com.

Annual Day of Quiet Reflection in honor of Evelyn Underhill was held this year on Evelyn Underhill's feast day, Saturday June 15th, 2002, at Sayre House on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. The title of the Day was "Yours Ever, E.S.M." Yours Ever looks at Underhill through her letters. As we trace her journey through holiday snapshots to Hubert, correspondence with friends, directees, and finally, the prayer group, we discover something of her wit, her charm, her sensitivity and her struggle.

Reverend Lindsay K. Spendlove was the day's leader.

Rev. Lindsay Spendlove is a priest in the Church of England, and is currently Chaplain to a LaSallian College in Ipswich, Suffolk, and the Diocesan Spiritual Director for Cursillo in Chelmsford. She also chairs a planning group for the National Retreat Association. For the past four years she has been Priest Associate and Chaplain to the House of Retreat at Pleshey, where she has developed a great regard, and affection, for the work of Evelyn Underhill and Lucy Menzies. In 2000 she accompanied the Evelyn Underhill Association Pilgrimage to Italy.

To honor Evelyn Underhill on the 60th anniversary of her death a one-day conference, "Evelyn Underhill:
The Contemplative Life and Society, " was held on Saturday, June 2nd, 9-3 p.m. at Regis College, University of Toronto. For more information contact Rev. Gerald Loweth, 905-883-8197.

Tour: Evelyn Underhill in Tuscany, Umbria, Kensington, and the Retreat House at Pleshey

June 14-29, 2000

Guided by Dana Greene, Dean of Oxford College of Emory University, Author of Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life and Evelyn Underhill: Fragments From an Inner Life.

News & Notes

Underhill's School of Charity was the basis for a recent retreat for the Daughters of the King in Cape May, N.J., directed by the Rev. John C. Kimball.

On June 18, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Underhill quotes were included in the seasonal missalette used in most Roman Catholic parishes in the U.S.

"Evelyn Underhill: Comtemplation and Social Justice---On the 60th Anniversary of Her Death" is planned for May/June 2001 at Regis College, University of Toronto. Contact Rev. Gerald Loweth, 76 Powell St., Richmond Hill, Ontario L4C 4S4, Canada for details.