CONSIDER...

Photo by Doug Heatwole

 with Doug Heatwole... 

“Contemplative practices make us more human.”
--Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg


"The path of contemplation supports the resilience needed to choose love and peace over anger, denial, and despair. Building a more loving future begins by finding it within ourselves and then working together to face the hardships in our world with greater love and deeper awareness. The wisdom and practices of the Christian contemplative tradition need to be accessible to all sincere seekers to meet the needs of this beautiful, but hurting world."
--Center for Action & Contemplation


"A prayer practice- contemplation- is a way of maintaining the fruits of great love and great suffering over the long haul and in different situations. And that takes a lot of practice- in fact, our whole life becomes one continual practice." 
-- Richard Rohr

I started practicing Centering Prayer with a desire to grow closer to God, but somewhere along my journey, as the world has unfolded over the last decade, I recognized a larger purpose for practicing Centering Prayer: to restore and promote our humanity, our way of being in community. We become more human, we attain what Jesus called "an abundant life," not as much within our selves as within and through our relationships with each other.

This is a driving force for sharing the prayer, for teaching Centering Prayer and promoting the contemplative way of life: to make us whole as a society, to create a world that manifests the glory of God, that reflects the goodness of God that He planted in us.

Our Servant Leadership Team has evolved into the Servant Leadership Circle, following the paradigm of the Circle Way, where everyone shares in co-creating and sustaining our chapter as we act together "to embrace the process of transformation in Christ, both within ourselves and in others through the practice of Centering Prayer."

The authors of "The Circle Way " say it this way: "We have all the gifts we need and we need all the gifts we have." All of you reading this are needed. Each of us has an important role to play in supporting our chapter of Contemplative Outreach.
And so, we are emphasizing the word "Outreach," asking each person to add their light to our collective flame. As Christians we are all ambassadors of Christ's love, so by belonging to this chapter, we are also ambassadors of the contemplative life whereby we experience God moment by ordinary moment in a way that others notice and desire transformations in their lives.

We will host a chapter event on May 10 where we will come together to envision our future in living out our calling to promote and teach and sustain the movement of Centering Prayer as a means of transforming ourselves and our community and the world. More details will be forthcoming in the April newsletter. As the Servant Leadership Circle, we hope that you will join us, because "we need all the gifts we have."