Gonzaga Search Secrets
Hello everyone,
Some of you are going to be very angry at me for making this post. If you are one of those people I’m sorry that you think secrets make a cohesive and friendly campus experience, but they do not. This post is for everyone who did not have the chance to or is still thinking about attending the Search retreat at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA. It is also for the people who feel excluded from their friend group by constantly being told “you just need to go”. Consider this a tell-all review of one of Gonzaga’s best kept secrets.
Search is a denomination agnostic retreat offered 4 times a year at Gonzaga University for current undergraduates. The search retreats usually sellout for the entire year in August before the school year even starts so it is near impossible to be able to go as a Freshman unless you know prior and most of the people there are Sophomores or higher. I’ll give a quick rundown of the timeline of events and what you can expect:
Day 1:
You leave from Cataldo circle and arrive at Bozarth mansion in the evening. You do some ice breakers and meet your retreat leaders and then you do this really obnoxious song thing that the leaders have made up. Get used to this song, because you will be doing it multiple times a day and it will be painful every time. You have a few moments to hangout and then it’s off to bed. I have to say that the dorms are pretty decent and the food is solid.
Day 2:
Here’s were things get weird. The leaders have little speeches throughout the day about events in their life that usually coincide with a certain theme. They tell pretty personal stories about self worth and loss of faith in God. You have a journal session after that and then everyone is broken up into guys and girls for small groups.
They have some VERY probing questions in these groups about sex life, depression, relationships, you name it. The leaders do not ask directly about these things but they do encourage people to get deep on these topics. People who I had just met talked about suicidal thoughts, sexual assault, parents being abusive, etc. Why should you tell all these people who you barely know about all these personal things? What’s to stop them from spreading the information later on when we are back on campus. People tell me that this is their favorite part of Search, but is it so that they can vent? Or is it because they like to hear to fucked up things that have happened to other people and feel superior and have dirt on them? The worst part is all of these people with serious issues were not encouraged to seek mental help after and as far as I know they never did. Just a lot of pats on the back and there-there’s for them in the small group.
After that, another annoying song and then you get introduced to the idea of Fred. Fred is a metaphor for God and he has “prepared” a nice little pamphlet thing of all the things that you like. You can usually figure out at this point that they sent out some sort of questionnaire to your parents and friends to see what you like to make this thing. I never felt more alone in my life than reading all the things that my parents thought I still liked from middle school. Maybe this would have been cool if they had done better research or if my relationships were better with my parents.
There are a few big secret reveals that night. One of them is that you have letters waiting on your bed from your loved ones and friends. This was a cool thing that they did and I did appreciate it. This practice is similar to a Kairos retreat if you’ve been to one of those. The next big secret is the reveal that there are a shit ton of people that have been hiding around the mansion helping to do things. They have this massive skit/play which is pretty funny and then they talk about how they are sponsors for certain searchers. They then proceed to tell embarrassing stories about you that they got from your friends which is kind of shitty and an invasion of privacy in my opinion but it is all in good fun. One thing that did freak me out though is that there were videos shown of you throughout the week that were taken by your friends or by people who had been at Search before. Pretty creepy to say the least.
This is a common theme as throughout the night they reveal more and more teams of people that helped plan the event and what they did to help. They have Search alum from across the world send in videos about how they are praying for you and it all culminates in a final ceremony where they have you burn a piece of wood to represent your sins/fears/anxiety or whatever.
Day 3:
Not much to say for this day. You have breakfast, another small group, and then you get to go into the attic area to see that they have murals put in place for each Search retreat that has happened since the beginning. That’s right, just when you thought you were finally in the club there’s an even higher club that you can try to get into. It was cool to see but it just continued the theme of me feeling like I don’t belong and excluded. You take the bus home and you see all the people who helped out waving to you at random points along the way which I thought was a nice touch.
Overall, not the best experience for me personally but I can see why people would enjoy it if they had a good friend group at Gonzaga and stable mental health. I was in a really rough spot mentally and already feeling excluded in other parts of my life which is why some of the things I outlined above probably impacted me more than they should have. I was also salty because I was a senior going on the last retreat for the year so I couldn’t even help out in the future like my other friends. The truth needs to be known though. I’ve seen Search used more as a tool of exclusion than a tool for good at my time at Gonzaga and it needs to stop. No more exclusion, only transparency. The best is yet to come.