Group retreats return to GilChrist
We are excited to welcome group retreats back to GilChrist! Group gatherings of all types have been a hallmark of the hospitality we provide, and over the past two years, we’ve missed the connection and renewal they offer to guests. While solo retreats give much-needed respite from the rigors of daily life, a group retreat has a special way of building community through shared contemplative practices. In January, it was so good to see participants gathering again in WindHill – safely and joyously!
February Practice: Feeling Spiritual
Our free, downloadable “Guide to Exploring Spirituality & Civic Life” includes key findings from “What Does Spirituality Mean to Us? A Study of Spirituality in the US,” related activities, questions, and actions to help you explore your own spirituality and how it relates to your civic life. We invite you to use the following prompt from the guide for this month’s practice.
Is Spirituality an Indicator of Human Flourishing?
What does it mean to live well? To be truly healthy? To thrive? Researchers and clinicians have typically answered these questions by focusing on the presence or absence of various pathologies: disease, family disfunction, mental illness, or criminal behavior. But such a “deficits” approach tells only so much about what makes for life well-lived, about what it means to truly flourish.
That’s all about to change.
The Spiritual Dimension of Childhood Development
The new report, What Makes Me? Core Capacities for Living and Learning, names nine core capacities deemed essential for learning and the healthy development of children and their societies.
January Practice: Taming Our Egos
“The spiritual life, the spiritual work is fundamentally about, for us normal human beings, overcoming the many facets of our own egoism, the tyranny of the false self,” says Kabir Helminski, co-founder and co-director of The Threshold Society. In the brief video below, Helminski shares both practical and humorous advice from his teachers on taming our egos. Watch!
This month let’s take these teachings out for a spin. Let us know in the comments below how this practice is playing out for you (and your ego).
Updates for GilChrist COVID practices in 2022
We’re all looking forward to the return of our retreat groups at GilChrist in the new year, alongside our continuing solo retreat guests!
December Practice: Visualizing Spirituality
Last year we released “What Does Spirituality Mean to Us? A Study of Spirituality in the US,” a groundbreaking study designed to help us explore what spirituality means to us and how it influences our civic lives. The study revealed that:
Depolarization Is Everyone’s Responsibility
As we approach the end of another tumultuous year, many of us are anticipating reunions and restoration. Looking forward to time with family and friends, we recognize the challenge of our separations and the need for human connection. But as we reunite, there are differences we may be burying. In fact, 45% of our nation’s adults now say that they have stopped talking about politics with others, either in person or online[1]. For good reason, some may argue.
November Practice: Appreciate Where We Come From
It is important for all of us to appreciate where we come from and how that history has really shaped us in ways that we might not understand. —Sonia Sotomayor
September Practice: Noticing the Silent Lives Around Us
This month we share two practices that our social media community members found helpful in the early months of the pandemic. We return to these practices with the hope that they continue to be helpful to you as you help others in your life and work to savor the only moment we really have: now.