Retreat presenter Gordon Creamer returns to Bon Secours on Friday, November 8 from 12:00-3:30pm for his popular Lunch & Dialogue program. Below Gordon shares some details about what to expect at this retreat, and he also invites us into a spirit of gratitude.
True thanking is to enjoy God. Gratitude is a true understanding of who we really are. With reverence and awe we turn ourselves around toward the work God leads us to do, enjoying and thanking with our real selves. ~Julian of Norwich
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G. K. Chesterton
The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful. ~Br. David Steindl-Rast
Above are compelling words of wisdom from the dynamic mystics we will be journeying with at the next Lunch & Dialogue program, where we will encounter gratitude in the Mystics. After a delicious lunch prepared by the creative culinary staff at Bon Secours, we will spend some intentional time discovering anew what it means to live a life authentically grounded in gratitude. With some of Christianity’s cherished mystics as our guides, we will be invited to explore the various contours of gratefulness and what it means to embody it on a daily basis. Thankful living is one thing, but to consider this reality infused with mysticism is quite another.
I am excited to journey with everyone who is able to attend this program on Friday, November 8th, not just as we prepare to enter the upcoming season of Thanksgiving and the holidays, but even moreso as we strive to behold God in all things and trust that all will be well in each moment.
I hope you can join us, but whether that is possible or not, may we all pause briefly now, and as often as we can, to summon our thanks for being alive and having been created in the Divine’s image and likeness. The mission of God is before us — may our gratitude continually shift our awareness that with God in our hearts, the impossible is definitely possible!
Gordon Creamer, MA, creator of the Mission Bridge, currently serves as Program Director at Well for the Journey, a spiritual wellness center in Lutherville, Maryland. Read more about Gordon here.