Gratitude and the Future of Retreat Centers

Mar 31

Do you have a gratitude practice during mealtimes? At my house, we often go around the table to share our “rose, bud, and thorn” from the day during family dinner. During a recent retreat at the Whidbey Institute with the Racial Healing Initiative team, I got a taste of intergenerational and intercultural gratitude during every dinner.

*The RHI team* at *The Whidbey Institute*

We shared meals in the dining hall with the Wayfinders, a dynamic and diverse cohort of young adults in the eighth and final week of their residential retreat program. Each night we set down our forks, and one by one, the Wayfinders offered heartfelt snippets of gratitude – for the sunshine, the food, a friend who listened, a difficult conversation that needed to be had – to which the rest of us would respond with finger-snaps. When it came to my turn, I felt like I had just witnessed the future of retreat centers:

Retreat centers can be places where people with many differences are building community, where challenges are opportunities for transformation, and the simplest moments are met with collective gratitude.