Get to Know Us

Still Waters is a contemplative nonprofit rooted at Hawthorne Valley Farm, offering a quiet, embodied space where individuals and small groups learn to listen for God again. In a cultural moment marked by digital acceleration, vocational exhaustion, and spiritual fragmentation, Still Waters provides a counter‑rhythm of presence, silence, and deep attentiveness. Through individual spiritual direction, Spiritual Direction in Common, retreat experiences, and equine‑assisted contemplative practices, Still Waters serves leaders, students, and communities who long for clarity, healing, and a renewed sense of God’s nearness. The ministry is grounded in theological depth, pastoral wisdom, and a commitment to forming people who can discern faithfully in a noisy world.

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In the future, Still Waters will grow into a fully realized retreat and formation center—an expansive, multi‑acre environment where individuals, groups, and institutions engage in communal discernment, apprenticeship in the way of Christ, and restorative practices that integrate land, silence, and spiritual direction. The farm will host regular retreats, leadership cohorts, and a year‑round rhythm of programming shaped by Kelli’s doctoral research in communal spiritual direction. As the nonprofit matures, Still Waters will become a regional hub for contemplative formation, a partner to seminaries and churches, and a place where people step out of digital overwhelm and into a slower, more sacred way of being. The long‑term vision is a sustainable, generative ministry that forms communities of deep listening for decades to come.