Listening to the Wisdom in the Room
By justine johnson with special gratitude to Joannie Kwok
In March and April of 2022, we organized, facilitated, and held a collaborative program with the leaders of The Iona Community, an international community, Naramata Centre in British Columbia, Five Oaks Centre in Paris, Ontario, Tatamagouche Centre in Nova Scotia, and Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center in Pennsylvania. We gathered to hold the question, how are we called to faithfully honor our inner spiritual journey and hold the outer journey of working for justice in these challenging times?
Our retreat centers kept alive by the human spirit, by hope, by resilience have an amazing 250 years of combined service. Beyond that, we also invited in the ancient wisdom of Iona and of the earth itself. Iona is known to many as the cradle of Christianity in Scotland. In 563, the Irish monk Saint Columba established a monastic settlement on the island. Ruth reminded us in the space that If the universe is 14 billion years old, the earth 4.5, life on earth 3.5 then it’s instructive to remember that human beings have only inhabited this soil for 200,000 years.
As the youngest facilitators of this program, Joannie and I were able to support, help hold the container of collaboration, and let the wisdom of the space wash over us. Here’s what we learned:
Connection is Key to Collaboration. It was a beautifully coordinated effort to prepare this program. The facilitators and tech hosts met several times ahead of the program. We laughed, shared our grief, and were all driven by a commitment and passion cultivating relationships and sharing stories.
Wisdom is everywhere and within everyone. If we slow down, we can truly listen to the wisdom in the room, on the land, and from ourselves. The stories we all hold are powerful and persuasive, and when we actively hear people into speech we can learn about ourselves and others – and how the world can shape us.
Retreat centers are vital. It is no surprise to those who showed up to this collaborative program that retreat centers hold a specific niche at the intersections of sacred land and building communities. In these spaces there is a beautiful mobius strip of doing inner work for outer service. Retreat centers are spaces for honoring the ancestral ways of knowing and looking for different ways of being.
As we helped hold the space with other facilitators, we were grateful for the new and familiar faces in the (zoom) room. It takes a collective to share, learn, honor, and birth wisdom. We also recognize the ways that retreat spaces can grow and collaboration can deepen – with special recognition of the importance of bringing in multiple voices to represent a wide range of lived experiences. To be together means we bring our full selves to a space that invites that courage in. We have that responsibility as retreat space holders, and collaboration through programs like this is one of the ways to explore how we can all work together for justice.