Nourishing Rhythms: A Retreat for a Layover between Flights
Four daily rhythms that help me stay healthy are reading, writing, walking, and praying. When I have time and want to have more of a half-day retreat, I do each for an hour. When I have other things that require my energy and attention, I do each for 30 minutes or 20 minutes 10 minutes. Some days I’m just getting by with the basics and hope to read, write, walk, and pray the next day.
Nourishing Rhythms: A Retreat for a Layover between Flight (Or Anytime!)
One way to establish and inhabit nourishing rhythms is to set aside a full day or half a day for an individual retreat. Because I’m a writer and a spiritual director who embraces contemplative spirituality, I’m a huge fan of individual private retreats.
During my recent trip home from Boston, I thought about what a retreat could look like during a layover. Here’s what I came up with using the four rhythms of reading, writing, walking, and praying.
Nourishing Rhythm: Read
It’s nice to begin with reading because whatever you choose to read can set the tone for your retreat and give you something to ponder and respond to. Here are a few options:
I love these travel-centric poems. Pick one or two or more to sit with for a few minutes.
Here’s a great essay by Annelise Jolley: Intimate Strangers: Reading Airport Essays During a Pandemic
And here’s another great essay by Leslie Jamison: Baggage Claims
Nourishing Rhythm: Write
Pick one or more from the list of writing exercises below or come up with your own!
Write at least 500 new words for an existing piece or project.
Journal for 10 minutes.
Respond to one of the pieces listed above.
Free write for 10 minutes on airports and traveling. Just start with whatever comes to mind and keep writing for the entire 10 minutes, or longer, of course.
Begin a story or a poem or an essay based on something or someone that you can see right now. What is asking for your attention?
Draw. Drawing is good for writers, and airports have an abundance of options for this contemplative practice. Read about it here. And you can listen to a short podcast episode where I guide you through the practice here.
Nourishing Rhythm: Walk
I like to walk for at least 10 minutes every hour or so when I’m in retreat mode. Airports are one of the best places to walk because of the people watching opportunities. If you’re lugging around carryons and whatnot and prefer to stay put, you can just stand up and stretch your legs every hour. Or walk around for a couple of minutes without your bags while keeping them safely in view.
Nourishing Rhythm: Pray
Airports are great for praying (especially if you have flight anxiety like me!)
Sometimes I’m struck by all of the stories held in an airport in a single moment, all of the people coming and going and the different reasons one might be coming or going.It feels like a miracle of sorts, that one place can hold all of those people and their joys and sorrows and hopes and fears.
One way to pray is to sit still for a few minutes and hold space for all around you by giving attention to their bodies, minds, hearts, and souls. Ask God to be present and show you how you are connected to those near you, to all of humanity.
More prayers are below. You can also slowly read one or more of the poems in the link above because poems can be great prayers.
A Prayer For Travelers from the Book of Common Prayer (with minor modifications)
O God, our Heavenly Father and Mother, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve me and all who travel today; surround us with your loving care; protect us from every danger; and bring us in safety to our journeys’ end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Prayer for Travelers from Catholic.org.
O Almighty and merciful God, who hast commissioned Thy angels to guide and protect us, command them to be our assiduous companions from our setting out until our return; to clothe us with their invisible protection; to keep from us all danger of collision, of fire, of explosion, of fall and bruises, and finally, having preserved us from all evil, and especially from sin, to guide us to our heavenly home. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Plan Your Own Individual Spiritual and Creative Retreat
If you don’t plan on being stuck in an airport anytime soon, you can easily create your own retreat using Our Faith in Writing’s Guide for Planning Your Individual Spiritual and Creative Retreat. It’s free. No strings attached!
Hire Charlotte Donlon (Me!) to Plan Your Individual Spiritual and Creative Retreat
I love to help my clients plan custom spiritual and creative retreats. If this interests you, you can learn more here and here.
Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™ and Parenting with Art™. She is also the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University where she studied creative nonfiction with Paula Huston and Lauren F. Winner. She holds a certificate in spiritual direction from Selah Center for Spiritual Formation. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. To receive Charlotte’s latest updates, news, announcements, and other good things, subscribe to her email newsletter.