FREMONT — In a nondescript two-story house in a residential neighborhood between the Niles Historic District and Old Canyon, two women with shaved heads wearing rust and saffron robes sit on mats and ...

As the world gets louder, places of quiet sound more appealing. Enter the increasingly popular travel niche of monastery retreats. You'll find accommodations offered by communities of monks (and nuns ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The Church publishes the Monitor ...

“God is as close to me than a pinch between my fingers. He’s in all this stuff of life.” That was a paraphrase of Meister Eckhart, famed medieval mystic, by The Rev. Maurice recently, near the end of ...

I made my annual retreat at the Trappist Abbey, a Catholic monastery for men, this past week. Situated just outside Lafayette, Ore., the Trappists recently inaugurated an attractive new chapel with ...

Nothing reveals the founding spirit -- or personal struggles -- of a religious tradition like spending time in a monastery. Try a weekend of sitting meditation at a Buddhist retreat if you want to ...

The word retreat never seemed to fit into my life. As someone who isn't religious, doesn't do yoga and struggles to disconnect and slow down, the concept of just being somewhere solo never really ...

One large church is learning how to grow a core of disciples amid the crowd of attenders. Is "megachurch discipleship" an oxymoron? I'm a pastor at a suburban megachurch where 3,000 attend weekly, and ...

At the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we find Luke Skywalker, dressed in the monklike robes of his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking old and impossibly sad. He is perched at the summit of an ...

Travellers in search of a respite, however fleeting, from the stresses of 21st-century life might do well to consider a more ancient and atypical form of holiday accommodation this summer. Whether ...

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Emma Donoghue about her new book, Haven. In it, three Irish monks in the Middle Ages choose to live a life of isolation on a rocky island. Emma Donoghue tends to write ...

FREMONT—In a nondescript two-story house in a residential neighborhood between the Niles Historic District and Old Canyon, two women with shaven heads wearing rust and saffron robes sit on mats and ...