Come for a Visit
We welcome all to share our space of peace, prayer, and nature. We are always happy to have visitors! Whether you drop by for an hour or stay for months, we are excited to share our community with you. Below are examples of the structures and daily activities available here at Community of Peace. We can’t wait to meet you in person - see you soon!
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We always love to have visitors here, but please respect our Nature Policy. Our monastic community is deeply melded with the Divine in Nature around us. Look, listen, and even softly touch when appropriate, but please leave nature where it is undisturbed - including animals, plants, fungus, and minerals.
Visitors are welcome to use the restrooms in the upstairs of our residential building, Sophia House. Our community is supplied with filtered well water for drinking right from the taps. Our diet is largely omnivorous; please let us know ahead of time if you have special dietary needs or food restrictions.
While attendance at sung prayer is not mandatory for guests, please be respectful of our Daily Times of Prayer inside Sophia House at 8:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 7:00 PM. Please help us observe our Daily Times of Silence in Sophia House from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM and 10:00 PM until after 8:00 AM morning prayer while you visit. (Note: Silence is observed all day on Fridays, and there is no morning or afternoon prayer on Mondays. Even monks need to sleep in sometimes!) When not being used for prayer or silence, the upstairs residential area is open for socializing, getting a snack, reading a book, or enjoying the peace according to your liking. Contact us through communityofpeaceva@gmail.com for questions and to inform us you are coming to visit.
Sung Prayer is held three times daily, with the exception of Mondays (which are evening prayer only). Everyone is welcome and invited to stop in for prayer time.
Morning prayer is at 8:00 AM, Midday at 1:00 PM, and Evening prayer at 7:00 PM. Each prayer time lasts approximately 45 minutes and is conducted by our Abbot, Br. Stefan. Sung prayer times follow the following format:
Opening with Sung Chants
Sitting in Silence for approximately 10 - 15 minutes
Reading Sacred Scripture, a relevant text or poetry, or storytelling
Shared exploration of the reading. Each person is invited to share the thoughts and emotions that the reading invoked in them. There is no right or wrong, and no discussion between persons of “what it means”; this is a time for personal insights to be shared.
Concluding with Sung Chants
If you’d like an impression of what our prayer sessions look like, we recommend visiting our YouTube channel, where we have uploaded a few songs from our prayers:
Sung Prayer
Our 270 acres of land feature lovely forests, meadows, ponds, and creeks. One of our daily tasks is to build beautiful, natural walking paths through the forests. We have a creek that flows through the middle of our property and it is peaceful to sit there, relax, and listen to the sounds of nature. Come explore all the different plants that are growing and all the different animals that are living here. Please drop by the Resident House (Sophia House) and let us know you are here to explore the property. We are always happy to have visitors walking the trails.
Walk the Forest Paths
Saturday Mindfulness Group
Every Saturday at 10:00 AM, Tim and Barb lead a Mindfulness Group where they share their experiences of how to be more present in daily life.
We do a small meditation together and talk about what awareness means and how we can get into a state of presence throughout the day. We share our personal experiences of awareness from the past week, and Tim and Barb try to answer all of our questions. At the end of every session, Tim gives us a small task or a thought we should focus on in the next week.
Everyone is welcome to join this group. Try it once, or come out every week! You are also welcome to stay for the Contemplative Nature Walk, lunch, and prayer after that.
Every Saturday, there is a scheduled 1-hour contemplative nature walk beginning at 11:00 AM. Those attending it are also invited to join us for lunch at noon and sung prayer time at 1:00 PM.
The purpose of these walks is to relax, which sharpens our awareness of the present moment. It also puts us more in touch with our Inner Voice for better guidance in all aspects of our lives. The contemplative nature walks focus more on seeing the great kaleidoscope of Creation in nature: the interactions, and the beauty.
Visitors are also welcome to come and walk the paths in our fields and forest at any time on their own. Please stop at the Residence House (Sophia House) and inform us you are here walking the property.
Contemplative Nature Walks
Every evening at 6:00 PM, we eat together. We sit at one big table and talk about the day, share funny stories, and unwind before Evening prayer. One person of the Community prepares supper for all, and every day, a new person prepares the evening meal. We frequently have international volunteers who share their traditional meals - it is always a delight to see what kind of delicious food will be prepared! Visitors are always welcome to join us at supper, and if they wish, they can also cook a meal for the community. We do our best to accommodate food allergies and preferences; letting us know your needs ahead of time makes this easier. If you would like to join us for supper or to prepare a meal for the community, please talk to Brother Stefan or one of our members.
Community Supper
Community of Peace has the second largest labyrinth in the state of Virginia, made of 10,111 white quartz stones all sourced from our property. The labyrinth is 100 feet in diameter and 2095 feet of walking from start to center. The paths are 39 inches wide and are accessible for wheel chairs. Allow plenty of unhurried time for the experience of walking our labyrinth in contemplation.
The labyrinth is available any time of any day. We appreciate a donation to walk the labyrinth, but if you cannot afford one, you are still welcome to enjoy it for free. The labyrinth is also a zone of Silence - please respect this when on or near the labyrinth.
Our labyrinth is constructed of beautiful white quartz stone. We welcome you to walk among them, but please leave every stone where it is for the enjoyment of future visitors.
Labyrinth Experiences
We have a stone-dust floor in our barn, making it a rustic setting for holding barn dances, drumming circles, poetry, or story telling events. If you are interested in holding an event in the barn that would be compatible with the nature of our monastic community, please contact us at communityofpeaceva@gmail.com or talk to Br. Stefan.
A Barn Fit for Dancing
Community of Peace offers personal retreats of varying durations. These are times to listen to God, to listen to the heart, and to listen to the Spirit for direction. Come for a day or two, a weekend, or a full week. Retreats can be guided, or silent, or customized by talking with Br. Stefan.
All our retreats are based in our monastic rhythm of life: sung Prayer three times a day, midday Silence, our daily community supper, and a time of Silence from 10:00 PM until after the following morning prayer at 8:00 AM. We also observe Silence within Sophia House all day on Fridays. These times of Silence are to be respected throughout Sophia House building, including in the sleeping quarters downstairs. We cherish a contemplative atmosphere for both residents and retreatants.
In between prayer times, retreatants may explore our forest paths, sit in nature, walk the labyrinth, read or study, and may arrange to have personal conversations with Br. Stefan. Those here for silent retreat may maintain their own silence the entire time as they please. Occasionally, we have weekends of silence which apply to everyone here and all visitors.
Every retreatant must have an exit strategy. If at any point either the retreatant or we ourselves find the visit is incompatible, we ask that the retreatant will leave.
Community of Peace will pick up and drop off visitors at the Charlottesville or Richmond, VA bus or train station or airport.
Our monastic rhythm of life is contemplative and full of peaceful quiet, with plenty of space for joy and sharing - and the occasional fun of chasing chickens back into their coop. Please contact Br. Stefan to discuss your retreat with him. You can connect with him through our email to arrange a phone conversation: communityofpeaceva@gmail.org.
Personal Retreats
Tent camping and self-contained RVs are welcomed on our property. If you are coming just to camp and not for a spiritual retreat, please reserve your time through our HipCamp link. We have a few tent sites, but permit open camping in our fields and forest. Open fires are not permitted at campsites, but we have a community fire circle by our pond that all visitors may use. Visitors may use our restroom on the upper floor of the residence house and obtain drinking water from our kitchen taps (filtered well water). You must provide your own food and prepare it at your campsite, and pack up all items and clean all trash at the campsite when you leave.
Camping and RVs
Something's Happening! There is so much to do every day here: cooking, gardening, building structures, even completing administrative tasks. We have work for every interest and are always grateful to those who wish to help. If you have time and want a project, just stop by at the Resident House and talk with us. We will find something for you that fits!