Ruth’s story asserts it is never too late to follow one’s heart and do something risky, even a bit wild. With grace and honesty, this book invites the reader to listen to the promptings of the still, small voice within and pay attention to the stirrings of the heart.
$18.95 ( plus tax). Available NOW. Includes color photos and discussion questions. Measures 6” x 9”, 165 pages. ISBN 978-0-945185-08-6.
Available here on Amazon.com and at the ARC Book Nook.
Ruth Halvorson is ARC’s founder and visionary. 50 years ago she honored her vision by building the Lodge on this beautiful land with her family.
She describes that vision based on the power of silence in her book, When The Heart Is Stirred.
That vision of contemplative silence continues to inform the lives of the employees, volunteers, and guests who come to ARC. Ruth reflected on this at the beginning of the pandemic in this essay.
“ARC was born in the womb of silence.” In her new book, Ruth Halvorson describes the conception of the ARC Retreat Community, a retreat center hidden in the woods of rural Isanti County in Minnesota. ARC is a place of hospitality, solitude, and renewal that has welcomed thousands of guests over its forty-two year history. As founder and first director, Ruth is uniquely qualified to tell the story of the inspiration, joys, and challenges of ARC’s creation. She describes the enthusiastic partnership that developed with her husband, Loren, and how they, together with countless volunteers, professionals, friends, and family, brought to reality a prompting first stirred in silence. She writes: “My first experience of intentional silence was an awakening to a deeper and more expansive understanding of God and my own potential. I was “grasped by what I could not grasp” . . . the solitude enfolded me like a comforting embrace and satisfied something deep within me.”