Dear Retreat House Friend,
This year, we celebrate the creation of our first 20 podcast episodes! These rich conversations highlight the many beautiful souls connected to the Retreat House community and how it looks to live faith out loud. Sacred stories shared highlight those who are bringing light to others, themselves and the world around them.
Throughout December, we will tend to the light as we re-share written Daily Light reflections as well as a corresponding podcast episode. Look for an email like this at the beginning of each week and one towards the end.
On behalf of the leadership of RH, we hope you’ll find some sense of illumination, connection and joy in these stories shared!
In peace,
Emily Turner Watson
Spiritual Director | Podcast Host of Tending Space to Bear Spiritual Fruit
Featuring 12/13
Why not a day retreat center?
Greg Smith asked his wife Lil this question around 2015 when the two were heading back from East Texas to look at some ranch property and a possible overnight retreat center.
“You’re always complaining that people don’t take time for themselves,” he continued.
Rev. Dr. Lil Smith is one of the co-founders of Retreat House Spirituality Center, and she says there has consistently been a personal invitation to create a space where people could go to rest, reflect, to play and to pray - a place to connect to themselves, the Holy and others. She saw a need for people to gather without membership requirements or too much conformity, a place where they might explore and express their spirituality with a freedom that isn’t always the cultural norm.
With her husband working in real estate, creating an overnight retreat center together was her original dream.
God had something else in store.
We hope you enjoy this conversation with Retreat House co-founders Lil Smith and Rev. Deanna Hollas as they share the many holy threads that brought and invited them to the mission and ministry that is Retreat House – a day retreat center in Richardson, Texas.
