Author and retreat leader Paula D’Arcy who turned a personal tragedy into her life work and mission will bring her message to Shreveport May 1.
In 1975, D'Arcy lost her husband and 21-month-old daughter in a car accident. She was pregnant with her second child at the time.
D’Arcy launched the Red Bird Foundation in 2001 to help people grow spiritually and to find inner peace. A dozen Shreveporters are sponsoring her retreat. D’Arcy of Austin, Texas, says these women have been to her retreats before and support the vision.
“They believe in what healing does for the world. They believe that, as I’ve taught so often, if our pain isn’t transformed, then our life really stops at that place,” D’Arcy said, who writes books on the subject.
D’Arcy’s half-day program will show how defining moments in life -- especially the terrifying things like a diagnosis or accident -- can bring clarity. Pain, according to D’Arcy, can be an opening to the possibility of something that wasn't there before. D’Arcy helps retreat attendees find meaning in ordinary days through storytelling.
“We get so we-can-almost-do-life-without-showing -up, and so I always try to call myself back to that place of being as open as I was at the beginning when my worlds fell apart and listening again and saying what am I really being summoned to in this life?” D’Arcy said.
The retreat is titled “Finding Our Way.” It takes place at Broadmoor United Methodist Church, 3715 Youree Drive, on Friday, May 1, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
