There are few places in our divided culture where people of all different beliefs can feel welcome. One of these special places, however, can be found at Holly Creek Retirement Community in Centennial. Holly Creek’s newly completed Quiet Waters Retreat, spearheaded by a committee of resident seniors, is uniquely meeting the spiritual needs of its diverse community.
“We already had a fantastic community room for Sunday morning church services,” shared Dolores Meader, who has been a Holly Creek for thirteen years and is a key member of its Spiritual Welfare Committee. “But we felt that our community also needed a space set aside 24/7 for more personal meditation and prayer.”
The Spiritual Welfare Committee circulated a community-wide survey exploring how to accommodate religious/spiritual differences and discovered residents wanted a meditation and prayer room focused on nature. With this vision, the Quiet Waters Retreat was born.
In keeping with its name, the completed space features a floor-to-ceiling water wall, over which seven gallons of distilled water pours in a constant, gentle stream. The committee chose to complement the water feature with décor derived from nature, including soft grey and brown finishes “conducive to feeling cocooned” and preserved aspen trunks, each individually wired with silken leaves to “lead eyes and prayers to heaven.” The room’s back glass doors open to the community’s central garden area.
Quiet Water’s other spiritual accents include two prayer benches and a single candle placed atop a side cupboard just inside the rippled glass door. Inside the cupboard can be found both a cross and a menorah, available to anyone who wishes to use them while in the retreat.
“No one person could have accomplished this alone,” Dolores shared. “We were able to disagree but part friends. I think we are all pleased with the result, in large part because we waited to act until we could reach a consensus. Nobody has anything like Quiet Waters — it truly brings creation indoors.”
The new retreat isn’t the only place where community members are working together to create a space of prayer and restoration. A resident-led meditation group is offering seniors at Holly Creek a special way to connect. Dick Bollinger regularly guides a group of around ten fellow seniors in typical meditation techniques using the community’s Eversound headphones to provide each person with individualized instruction.
The result of both these collaborations is the opportunity for unique spiritual support.
Dolores visits Quiet Waters frequently and gets “a quiet joy from coming here — just feeling the peace of it.” Dolores also recalls a conversation with a staff member a few days before, who mentioned that she uses the space every week, showing just how well it is “quietly and unobtrusively serving its purpose” for various community members.
Many in the community could say the same of Dick Bollinger’s weekly meditation classes as well.
The successful collaboration of both Quiet Waters and meditation groups has created spiritually nurturing opportunities that Dolores and her neighbors have come to treasure. “Someone once told me,” she concluded, “This is the essence of Holly Creek.”
This story originally appeared in Denver Post’s YourHub and is used by permission.
