An Invitation to Create Community — SDI Conference 2019

by

Steven Crandell

Are you new to SDI? Never been to our conference? Visit this webpage to see photos and watch video from the 2018 conference so you can get a sense of what it’s like.

When we connect, we are complete.

The SDI Conference “Seeking Connection – Across Generations” (March 14-17, 2019) is an invitation to create community in a way that creates positive change.

Why attend?

  • Experience a community of integrity.

  • Learn from other generations & traditions.
  • Witness transformative wisdom.

  • Discover through body, place & spirit.
  • Celebrate our global contemplative calling.
  • Be spiritually replenished.

What makes this conference an opportunity to grow?

It’s not just the remarkable speakers. It’s not the workshops you can attend … or the option to make a spiritual journey  or go on a 4-day retreat  or to join a full-day seminars to learn in-depth.

It’s the people.

From the minute you enter the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington, you’ll start to feel at home with strangers. Imagine that. Each unknown face will be an opportunity to expand personally, socially, spiritually. 

Talk about a voyage of discovery. There is nothing is this world like creating community face-to-face. You learn a lot about each person you meet. You learn more about yourself. And most important, you will help grow our movement. Your tuition, of course, helps maintain and grow our global contemplative community, making spiritual direction available to more people every day. But your “presence” at the conference also does something deeper.

Many attendees talk about entering a sacred and nourishing space at the conference — a place of potential, of great comfort, of profound discovery. This is what it means to practice curiosity — to be a spiritual explorer — to accept difference and inter-connection in one breath.  

Next March in Bellevue, we will become a living example of how listening and compassion can connect inner being with well being, how diversity can make us wiser and  stronger, how community starts with the stillness within. This is how the Contemplative Revolution begins – by reminding all people of the great resources they have inside and offering the spiritual companionship that can help them chart their own course to peace and joy and service. 

Passing the torch

means

those giving

and those receiving

are equally bathed in light.

Participating in Seeking Connection – Across Generations will be an introduction to what we call the SDI Public Square of Spiritual Companionship —  a community where all people are invited to enter with their spiritual inclinations intact (or none at all). Where hospitality is the rule not the exception. 

Might there be surprises at this conference? Naturally. Mystery and grace are nothing if not spontaneous. 

Will there be challenges? Of course. We do not learn if we live in a bubble of sameness. 

In a world that often despairs over differences, we will stand together in Bellevue to celebrate them, to show that all people deserve spiritual freedom. 

Yes, please come to our gathering.  Come ready to listen, to learn … to sing, to discern … to dance, to discuss–to create, contemplate and pray.   

Come as you are, but come ready for transformation.

Should this conference be your next step? Are you ready to give and receive in this deep and personal and communal way?

Take a few moments … or days … and discern… Let Spirit guide you… No matter what you decide please remember you are welcome, now and always … and that the journey of Spirit is not something you must do alone.

P.S. Scholarships are available for the conference for those in financial need. Find out more here – https://www.sdievents.org/scholarships.

Picture of Steven Crandell

Steven Crandell

Steven Crandell is the director of content and communities for SDI. He guides SDI’s storytelling and local community-building — on our website, our blog, social media, in our webinars and through our SDI Communities program. He sees spiritual companions as the catalyst in an ongoing “contemplative revolution.” His unofficial job title is “Director of Encouragement.”

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