No, this does not mean "go forward in a reverse Direction..."

Ever since High school, I have been gifted with a vision, a sense of life direction. This vision has led me to the idea of a retreat center. Let me tell you about it, and then, before you explode, I'll tell how and why I got here.
 
 

The Retreat center is actually two entities: A business which provides lodging, activity space, and the service of directing a variety of events; and a model community which maintains the business and attempts to live out the ideas taught in the retreats.

The business will begin as a bed & breakfast with about 10 rooms. My wife, Jennifer, and I will run it, getting help from family and friends as they offer and we need it.

In the beginning, we will only do the thing typical to B&B's: a beautiful setting, nice rooms, and good breakfasts. But as the business grows, we will add more amenities. I would like to retain the services of a fully trained chef, and offer three, or even four, meals a day. Thus becoming a Inn and Restaurant. Parallel to that development, I plan on building a small outdoor amphitheater, a studio space for dance/meditation/martial arts, a stable (Jen and I would love to have horses), and storytelling area in the main house. From that point, we would add a chapel, meeting spaces, and additional housing. Now we have reached the conference center size and functionality.

The goal is to consistently offer a safe place for all people to come, be in a spiritual environment without feeling oppressed, and have the chance to step back from their lives to see where they are going and where they ought be going.

In order to meet that goal, there is a certain amount of care taken in choosing the location, concern for the space created, and a measure of security that must be provided. I would like to have a place where anyone, from pauper to prince would feel safe, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
 
 

The staff must form a community in itself. This must be a place were people can rely on each other, grow with each other, and be creative. So in order to build a retreat center, there must also be a model community to support it. This model community will serve two purposes:
 
 

1. Provide the staff for the retreat center
2. Demonstrate the possibility of people living in harmony.

It has always been my thought that society allows people privilege in return for service to society. So the question arises, "What service does the retreat center serve?" The answer is the retreat center provides a model for living, with a goal of being reproducible. The retreat center must also provide services to the larger community which hosts it. The services can range from cultural and artistic support, education, information resource on a wide variety of subjects, medical support, and additional hospitality services for the community. All this can be done in a fashion which does not endanger the environment, or degrade the quality of life in the area.

I would like to provide education for the people and families supporting the retreat center. I want to provide the basic utilities and services for these people. I want to build something which will last for generations. One of the largest questions on my mind is how to deal with the children.

The children need to have every opportunity to be successful. They need to have strong education, a strong connection to the community. They need to be aware of the stories which created the retreat community. They need to be given strong social support so that they grow up to be confidant and active and able to follow their beliefs. If I have created a place where the children do not understand and cannot interact with the world, I have done the world, the children, and ourselves a great disservice.

The children must also grow up to be free. The adults which are grown and groomed in this community must be free to follow their own path. They cannot be blindly indoctrinated into a political system or religion. They must be made aware of the possibilities and choose for themselves. The conflict is that they must also be given a place to start.

I do not want to create a community which is afraid to talk about religion, philosophy, law, and morals in front of children because they biasing the children or insulting people of other beliefs. Children need the exposure to different ideas in order to maintain an open mind. How to achieve this, I am not quite sure.

Ultimately, The community should not grow larger than about 500 people.  Anything larger will become unmanageable, and still fit the goal which we have set.
 

I lived on a farm when I was young.  I hated it, but after some time I found peace there.  That was my first bit of hope.  My family had always been interested in alternative energy, sustainable living, and caring for the land.  From the farm, we could see the tip of Long's Peak.  That sight, ever-present, led me to an appreciation of the mountains and the land that will be with me always.  So it is no surprise that I want to build the retreat in the mountains, away from the rush of the cities.

This idea stayed with me as I went to Regis College.  I met a girl name Lauren there.  She was a EMT on campus.  She challenged my ideas because they did not do any good for society.  "What of the people on the street?  How will your efforts help them?  The trickle down theory of social work will not help them."  Through her eyes, I saw my own arrogance.  I wanted to provide a place for my elite, failing to serve the rest of humanity.  My goal has always been to help the world, not ignore it.  With Lauren's help, I changed the idea to insure the retreat center benefits society.  It would be open to everyone who needed time to be separate.  The center would assist people with their basic needs, and then broaden their horizons.  Bold ideas.  This pushed me toward the idea of a community center.  It also reminded me of social responsibility.

There was a feeling on campus those days that our world was going to spiral out of control.  I could feel the collapse of society happening soon, just around the corner.  I felt and feel now that we need to take steps to protect what we have learned.  Should a collapse happen, someone needs to be prepared to care for the people injured in it.  There needs to be a place which is safe.  Safe from terrorists, able to fight disease, willing to help people when they need it.  I don't expect the United States to fall apart in the near future, but we must be prepared for catastrophe.

After I left Regis, I turned my thoughts to the structure of the community I wished to build.  How would the children be educated?  What structures would we build to support the children?  I knew that at least one commune failed because it could not deal with the next generations.  The answer is more simple than expected:  we educate the children in the community as best we can, in a community school.  When a child reaches the age of decision, 18 in Colorado, they will be required to spend some time away from the community.  Either they will go to college, or career, or simply travel to see the world.  After that stage they can return to the community if they wish, bring new ideas and critiques of old ones back with them.  The community does not abandon the child at this stage, but pushes them to grow.  Of course there will be exceptions, people who would not benefit from this, and they will not be pushed out.

Over the last three years, I finally started to see how to get to my goal.  I knew that the retreat could not start as a large organization.  I realized that the retreat would start as a bed and breakfast, and would grow from there.  During this time, I was focused on getting the process started.  About once every six months, I would meet someone who refered me to the Manitou Foundation.  I finally took the hint, and started investigating them.  They offered a land grant program, to organizations like the retreat center.  Unfortunately, all of their land has been allocated.  Fortunately, they are associated with another organization which has more land.  This new group is called  The EarthArt Village. They just might be the people with whom I need to work.