An absolute age since I have had the space to write and I have missed these entries. The retreat space where I work has been busy in recent weeks and I haven't had a great deal of space or time to myself to process and reflect. I have loved the privilege of interacting with the variety of guests who have found their way to The Sanctuary so far this year. It has been an eclectic mix of old and new friends and people making their retreat. The experience has helped me to continue to believe in a vision I have had for a number of years; a desire to create community.
For very many years I have wanted to create a retreat centre which had an emphasis on open exploration and personal development - but placed itself a step back from retreat centres which assume a level of faith commitment is already in place. I wanted to create a place where a variety of perspectives could intersect and synthesize. Originally I saw us emulating the staple diet of most retreat houses with a mixture of weekend worskshops, evening activities, quiet days and individual guided retreats. Interestingly as time has gone on this original notion has evolved and grown.
Over the last year we have piloted some of the vision by opening The Sanctuary. It has been an extraordinary success and has encouraged me to dare to dream further. The Sanctuary has helped me to also firm up a clearer idea of my own strengths and weaknesses; my preferred ways of working. It has also established a much clearer notion of where the need is; what community means in practice; and where my giftedness is apparently lying. (Sometimes it isn't where we think it is - but where others discern it to be).
There are a number of retreat houses within various faith and denominational traditions which service, very adequately indeed, the workshoppers and short retreatant market. We do this too - but I would love to offer some other quality opportunities to encounter and get to know self and others alongside this.
We have discerned over the years that there are two expressions of community which are not easily met by the options already available. The first is a spiritually rooted community where people can live and express faith and doubt by the way they live - without joining a religious order or a commune. L'arche communities and some set up along Rudolph Steiner principles offer something of this vision, but are often configured around meeting the needs of an established client group, for example people with learning disabilities or children with multiple disabilities. I am envisioning a community which sees itself as a serving community - looking outwards, living a shared life at a level which promotes healthy and meaningful relationships within the community and wider society. BUt as a community which is not simply content with servicing the needs of the people who come to join them for various periods of time. This community supports and nurtures those who gather and also relates to and nurtures those who have no need or desire to visit such a space.
I have also established a need for places where people can go for extended stays and explore their own giftedness, needs and hopes for the future - a place where ability and uniquesness can be midwifed, birthed and fostered over an extended period. There is a huge need for a place where people can recover - from breakdown; traumatic experience or chronic stress.
In addition, we have identified that in a contracting Church, places where a faith community live, work and commit to a spiritual journey together, could offer a powerful, perhaps even subversive witness in amongst the current secularising trends dominating society. Such a community could choose to express its wider concerns through its interactions with society and in the quality of care it offers as a community. I am reminded of projects like Potter's House in Washington DC.
We also recognise that for many people with little or no experience of spiritual issues there is a need to find places where questions can be explored and invited in ways which will not involve dogmatic responses; where honest doubt and a rich engagement in creation, creativity, science, politics and social justice are engaged with enthusiastically and with integrity.
I really do delight in companioning others on their journeys, but I have come to recognise that I need significant and meaningful companionship myself too. We want to work within community where some of the co-dependency found in more traditional spiritual director and directee relationships can be minimalised.
Our current envisioning is of a plot of land; woodland and water; bumps and view desirable; near a village or a town. Easy-ish to get to - but distinctive and memorable. Maybe a small holding; maybe a church or steading to renovate. Animals about. Ecologically aware.
The land is divided into plots with their own entrances and water, sewage (maybe a shared reed bed) and energy provision (maybe shared turbine?) These plots are self-sufficient and the property on the plot or built there is owned by the member of the community living in it. There would be additional units to be rented and for people to stay in on shorter visits. An area would be set aside in Trust and used as common land. This might house property held in common. A spiritual space/chapel (wood or cob); workshop or studio space; theatre or music space - whatever represented the interests of the community and could be reasonably held in common and financed and maintained jointly.
Those who live in community also live their own lives with their own front door; their own friends; their own engagement with the world. When the community gathers it may be for worship; to tend the common ground; to eat together; to welcome a guest; to work on a shared project. Some may earn off site - others may work collaboratively together. All will need to work to share a common life and support on another.
At the moment I can only imagine something quite small and intimate. Houses converted or built to contemporary eco-standards.
People who call themselves and decide this is something that captures their imagination and offers them something they would value.
It is an exciting dream. Dare I? Dare I?
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