A Cool Way to End a Retreat

At our Mepkin Abbey retreat, we had a really wonderful ending to the retreat.  We spent some time on Sunday morning reflecting on what we had just experienced and writing a letter to ourselves.  Our leaders suggested we record three take-aways and then three practices we hoped to institute after the retreat.  They gave us envelopes to be self-addressed, and sometime in the next few months, the leaders will mail our letters.

I'd have been happy with that ending, but our leaders did something much more special. 

We gathered in the chapel after lunch for our closing ritual.  We read from our letters.  And then, our retreat leaders read a letter of encouragement they'd written to each individual.  That letter will be mailed with the letters we wrote to ourselves.

Each letter showed that the leaders had been listening deeply as the retreat went along.  I was astonished at the level of detail--and at the fact that they had been able to get them all written in the short space of time.

We then did a closing prayer, with an anointing of the hands and foreheads of each individual.  Here, too, we had an unusual twist.  We each blessed the oil before the prayer began.  Each person in the circle held the vial of oil, blessed it with words given to us, and then breathed in a word that we wished to see manifest for each of us as we moved forward (for example:  "patience" or "vision for a different future" or "grace").

I left feeling blessed in a multitude of ways.