Spirit Journal - February 2017 -

Preview

This month, we start off with an item written by Chicago chapter coordinator Alan Krema, reflecting on the ancient Wisdom tradition, which is the focus of our ongoing Living Wisdom series of Saturday workshops.

Next, we provide updates on upcoming events, including May’s Cloud of Unknowing Retreat with Father William Meninger and the Eight-Day Intensive/Post-Intensive Retreat coming up this August. We also highlight upcoming events at Healing Gardens in St. Charles and inform you about a range of other contemplative opportunities – local, regional, and nationwide. This issue also includes a link to Parabola, an online and print magazine that may be of interest to you, and Insights from Alan Watts, Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, and James Finley.

We’d be delighted to have your help in making Spirit Journal a valuable resource and forum for the members and friends of Contemplative Outreach – Chicago. Please use the email address provided at the end to send in your ideas and insights.

What Is the Wisdom Tradition?

by Alan Krema

In our ongoing Saturday Living Wisdom workshops, it is clear that some of our group are familiar with the notion of Wisdom as an embodied spiritual practice and also that many are curious but not familiar with the people and practices that we refer to as coming from the Wisdom tradition. So, I offered to write a brief overview to create a context for what we mean by Wisdom.

As a starting point, consider these two excerpt’s from The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault:

Wisdom is an ancient tradition, a precise lineage of spiritual knowledge, not a particular religious expression, but arising from the headwaters of all the great sacred paths. From time immemorial there have been Wisdom schools, places where men and women have been raised to a higher level of understanding, partly by enlightened human beings and partly by direct guidance from above. Wisdom has flowed from a great underground stream from these schools, providing guidance and nurturance, as well as occasional sharp course corrections, to the flow of human history. – p.4

Jesus was known to his disciples as a Wisdom teacher – a “Master of Wisdom.” He taught a method of transformation that was both ancient and timeless. The teaching he brought and embodied conforms itself to the vessel of Wisdom as had been known to the ancients of history. – p.13.

In the early Christian times there developed a way of living expressed by the teachings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. They formed a combination of hermit and community lifestyles that included a deep desire to live the way Jesus lived and taught. This movement was in some way a reaction to the Church becoming a social and political institution focused on external practice and belief.

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For the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the notion was to live in a way that developed each person as a whole, bringing body, mind, and spirit into finely tuned alignment. Theirs was a very embodied lifestyle, i.e., much was taught in terms of the body. All was intended to be in balance, not in extremes. Food was a means of living. Extreme fasting was discouraged because, as an end in itself, it creates distractions to prayer. So does gluttony create a false sense of imbalance. There is much to learn from this tradition about prayer and the opening of the self to the deeper and higher notions of being. I hope in the future the Living Wisdom program will be able to spend an entire workshop day or retreat on the theme of the Desert Abbas and Ammas.

From the long traditions of the monastic desert communities, the Benedictine Rule (circa 500 a.d.) arose as a scripted framework for living a life of Wisdom. It is the oldest working rule for living in Western history. More than the details of living a monastic life in the 6^th century, the rule provides us a meta template for living. The daily Benedictine rhythm of ora et labora fundamentally divides our activity into four parts or quadrants: to pray, to pray in community, to work, and to work in community.

In this context, the method of Centering Prayer taught by Thomas Keating and his Benedictine community can be looked at as a method for one-fourth of the daily activity we are called to. In addition to private prayer practice, we can experience group prayer, work as conscious labor, and our work in groups as means of enhancing awareness of the divine indwelling, in alignment with others. This Benedictine calling of ora et labora is another theme I hope we will be able to spend time developing as the Living Wisdom program continues.

The overarching mode-of-being that is derived from these traditions is one of wholeness. We are driven to be complete and whole. Our body should be in alignment with our mind and our mind should serve our sense of higher and deeper meaning. When we come to have this motivation as a basic human need, we see all manner of spiritual expression, especially in our religious heritage, as means to depth and meaning.

In this brief article, I won’t have time to spend on the many Christian mystics over the centuries who embodied, in an individual expression, living Wisdom as a complete and whole human being. Certainly St. Francis of Assisi was aligned with the Wisdom tradition in the sense of focus not only on spirit but on living in moderation and balance with the body and the natural world.

In the modern era, which is the last 600 – 700 years, we have lost touch with Wisdom as we have grown into individualistic notions of mental activity and attachments. The separation of religion and science has not served us well, since any notion of separateness detracts us from being whole. I loved science since I was a boy and I have loved the Christian culture I was raised up in. I had a career as a biologist and as a biomedical engineer and have always been filled with the joy of awe and wonder at the hands of science discovery. My appreciation of creation is made far greater and deeper by the vision of science.

In order to bring Wisdom into our lives and our times, we need to include all that we know and how we live in today’s world. All that we know about our cosmos being an ever expanding and changing process; all that we know about our makeup as psychological beings; all that we know about the science of the heart and our neurological alignment; all that we know about our connectedness in human society and the planet we live on. All this knowledge has to take its place in the wholeness of our lives. We are called to live a contemplative or whole life but for most of us this does not include a monastic lifestyle.

The “Modern Patriarch of Wisdom,” the most important figure in the recovery of Wisdom in modern times, is George I. Gurdjieff (1866? – 1949). Born in Russian controlled Armenia, he undertook a 20 year journey through Egypt, the Near East, and Central Asia, finding sources of ancient Wisdom and developing his form of the practice. He returned to St. Petersburg just prior to WW1 and began teaching what he called “the Work” to a small group of students. His innovative teaching involved cosmology, sacred movement, and practical work.

Here is another excerpt from The Wisdom Way of Knowing:

The Work, as Gurdjieff’s teachings are known, still continues around the world, although the format in which it is presented – highly intellectualized and somewhat secretive – is not to everyone’s taste. Its real influence has been subtle, more at the level of a quiet tilling of the ground of modern cultural consciousness until the emergence in our time of genuine Wisdom teaching and teachers…the real source of Wisdom lies in a higher or more vivid realm of divine consciousness that is neither behind us or ahead of us but as always surrounding us. And time works differently in this realm. Original doesn’t mean first in time, it means closest to the origin. What is genuinely original in this spiritual sense of being intimately connected to the Source – makes itself present in time not by the passage of linear time but by the principle of synchronicity: meaningful patterns of consciousness. – pp.23-25

It is not everyone’s calling to enter into a path of esoteric practice. But we are all called to become conscious as the created beings we are. This means we pursue our desires for wholeness, completeness, spiritual depth, and openness to our divine indwelling.

The Work provides some helpful tools for us to align our awareness and consciousness with our True Self: our inner being that is patterned in the created world of our lives. In the Gurdjieff Work, we are three-centered beings. The intellectual center (mind), the moving center (body), and the emotional center (heart). Each center has its own intelligence and all three need to be working in balance for us to be whole and complete.

Paying full attention to our body, heart, and mind is real Work for us. Because we are so very enculturated to allow our mind to dominate and to “figure everything out,” we miss big indicators of reality gained from our body awareness and the spacious connected awareness of our hearts. When we are able to use our mind to serve our heart and to move about in our daily lives in a deep and loving awareness, we will feel whole and complete. Again, we hope to develop more workshop days and retreats focusing on conscious labor, movements, and heart awareness.

The following is a sample of Wisdom practice taken from the Wisdom School Community facebook page. Notice the invitation to be aware of body, heart, and mind. This is a regular feature of the group, known as “Inner Task Fridays.” This particular post was written by Jeanine Siler Jones.

(Notice Jeanine’s use of words such as “sensed spaciousness” and “continuum of spaciousness” in an attempt to describe inner states of openness and space. Also, her description of constriction and release are very similar to the surrender we participate in during centering prayer. Here, she is using the sensation to notice participation in daily living experience.)

This week, I have been playing with the felt sense of spaciousness, being aware of my own “awareness of spaciousness.” I have noticed myself in different interior states, from an open, spacious, released inner state to a more constricted, agitated, sense of self.

The Welcome practice (see Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening chapter 13) opens the door to sensation, deeper than my narrative self. It helps me become more familiar with what is happening right now, and allow it. The Welcome practice invites me to notice and surrender the experience I am having that can at times hook my sense of threat around security, esteem or power.

Remember, every emotion can be felt as the energy of sensation. I invite you, once again, to notice or track your body, your physiology, with curiosity and compassion, as you fluctuate along your own continuum of spaciousness.

As a practice, I offer a body prayer from my first Wisdom School that is helping me sense into the gravity at the center of my own being. The words are: “At the Stillpoint of the turning world, there I will know as I am known”. Begin by finding your feet and your own grounded presence. Lifting your right hand up to the heavens with an open palm, and your left hand down and intending toward the ground, slowly pivot on the ball of your right foot, keeping your right foot stable (the still point), as you circle around with your left foot.

Say or chant the words as you slowly turn: “At the Stillpoint of the turning world, there I will know as I am known”.

Notice what happens. See if you can sense into both the inside of you and the outside of you as one whole experience. See if you can know more about your own continuum of spaciousness…as you turn.

May’s Cloud of Unknowing Retreat with Father William Meninger is Very Nearly Full – Act Now

May 5-7 at the Chicago Cenacle, we are thrilled to present The Cloud of Unknowing Retreat with Father William Meninger – a rare opportunity to learn directly from one of the originators of Centering Prayer. Many have already registered and there are very few spaces left. UPDATE: THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Save the Dates: Eight Day Intensive/Post Intensive Retreat August 6-13

Contemplative Outreach-Chicago will offer Eight-Day Intensive and Post-Intensive Retreats at the Portiuncula Center in Frankfort Illinois August 6-13. These extended retreats provide opportunities to deepen the practice of Centering Prayer in an atmosphere of profound silence and community support. Registration will begin in early March.

Enneagram Workshop and Introduction to Centering Prayer Highlight Spring Activities at Healing Gardens in St. Charles

Healing Gardens, a lovely two-acre expanse of woodland and perennial gardens at Stone Hill Farm in Saint Charles, will be hosting a range of contemplative activities in March and April, including an Enneagram Workshop on March 25 and an Introductory Centering Prayer Workshop on April 1.

On Saturday March 25, the day-long Enneagram Workshop will introduce and explain a powerful tool for personal insight and collective transformation. Acting as a “mirror of the soul,” the Enneagram presents nine ways of experiencing ourselves, others and the Divine. Each of the nine Enneagram “types” has a different pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.

“Through the exploration of the Enneagram we discover who we believe we are, what is underneath those beliefs, and what moves us toward or away from Divine Essence,” says JoAnne McElroy, who will facilitate the workshop. “By identifying our primary type, we are able to appreciate our unique gifts while moving to overcome our inner barriers.”

The all-day Introductory Centering Prayer Workshop on Saturday April 1 offers an opportunity to learn the method of Centering Prayer or, for those already practicing, an opportunity to deepen the practice. The presenters are specially trained and commissioned in teaching this short course which covers the essentials of the method and conceptual background of Centering Prayer. After the initial workshop, the program continues for 5-6 weeks with 90-minute gatherings to pray, view and discuss a video presentation by Fr. Thomas Keating, and to support an emerging daily practice of Centering Prayer.

Other March-April activities at Healing Gardens include two “Silent Saturdays” and the “SPA Sisters Awakening Retreat for Women” – a Spa for the Spirit helping women to awaken their connection to Nature, Spirit and Authentic self. For more information, please visit the Healing Gardens website.

More Local and Regional Retreats and Events to Consider

Peace activist, oral historian and author Rosalie Riegle will discuss Catholic Worker movement co-founder Dorothy Day and the foundation of her Catholicism at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 2, in St. Benedict Chapel on the fourth floor of Kindlon Hall at Benedictine University. This event is free and open to the public. Rosalie is a member of the Chicago chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society (ITMS) and was part of the “Dorothy Day Roundtable” at the 2011 ITMS conference at Loyola. For more information, contact Lynn Dransoff at ldransoff@ben.edu or (630) 829-6250, or visit the Benedictine University website.

The Chicago chapter of The International Thomas Merton Society and The Dominican University Siena Center present Is the Future of American Religion Already in the Past? at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, March 19, at Dominican University Priory Auditorium, 7200 Division St., River Forest. Former Newsweek Magazine Religion Editor, Ken Woodward, will explore this challenging question. Mr. Woodward is the author of Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from Eisenhower to Obama. Admission is free, refreshments will be served, and ample parking is available. RSVP to Mike at 773-447-3989.

Contemplative Outreach – Chicago’s four-session Living Wisdom Program is half-completed, and there are two remaining all-day Saturday workshops in Mount Prospect through April, each dedicated to a theme of wisdom in the Christian contemplative tradition. You can sign up now for The Welcoming Prayer (March 18) and/or The Wisdom of Mary Magdalene (April 8).

In St. Louis, June will bring the five-day retreat Rebirth in Christ on the Tree of Life: a Process of Inner Transformation at the Marianist Center. Both “old wine” and “new wine,” Kess Frey introduces a Christian contemplative interpretation of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. This living allegorical Tree is said to predate the birth of Jesus and to have its earthly roots in ancient Hebrew mysticism. Kess, from Anchorage, Alaska, will explore the way that Christ stands in the center of creation’s Universal Tree of Life and in the soul of each individual as the divine indwelling. Kess Frey has authored four books related to the conceptual understanding of Centering Prayer, the most recent entitled “The Will of Divine Love: Centering Prayer & Spiritual Psychology.” Kess serves as Coordinator of Contemplative Outreach of Anchorage, has been practicing Centering Prayer since 1989 and offers workshops on contemplative spirituality. He is also active in prison ministry. This retreat will include presentations, periods of Centering Prayer, silence and small group process. For information or pre-registration, contact Susan Komis – susankomis@charter.net or 314-750-5100.

Center for Action and Contemplation Offers Three-Day Conspire 2017 Conference This Summer in Albuquerque and Online

Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) will be holding its three-day Conspire 2017 conference June 7-9 in Albuquerque, or you may participate online. According to the CAC, “Richard Rohr, angel Kyodo williams, Mirabai Starr, and Ken Wilber will explore our misguided attempts to overcome evil. They help us rediscover all beings’ inherent unity and belovedness. Conversion demands immense humility and honesty rather than zeal or purity. The autonomous, egocentric, and separate self must give way to our True Self. Facing our shadow is a breakthrough to grace and mercy. Embracing the parts of ourselves we’ve denied also reveals a “golden shadow”—our goodness, giftedness, and generosity!” For complete information and registration, visit the CAC website.

Parabola: A Publication of Interest

Parabola Magazine has been published since 1976 by the Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition, which describes itself as “a not-for-profit organization devoted to the dissemination and exploration of materials relating to the myths, symbols, rituals, and art of the world’s religious and cultural traditions.” Each quarterly issue of Parabola has its own focus: one of the timeless themes of human existence. The current issue focuses on “the search for meaning,” with articles by Cynthia Bourgeault, Maurice Nicoll, Alan Watts, and many others. Have a look.

Insights

Union with God is the primary and most unavoidable reality of our lives.

– Alan Watts

The divine is disclosed everywhere for those who have eyes to see. Our only blindness is our own lack of fascination, amazement, humility, curiosity, awe, and willingness to be allured forward.

– Richard Rohr

There is a deeper current of awareness, a deeper and more intimate sense of belonging, which flows beneath the surface waters of your being and grows stronger and steadier as your attention is able to maintain itself as a unified field of objectless awareness.

– Cynthia Bourgeault

To practice meditation as an act of faith is to open ourselves to the endlessly reassuring realization that our very being and the very being of everyone and everything around us is the generosity of God. God is creating us in the present moment, loving us into being, such that our very presence is the manifested presence of God. We meditate that we might awaken to this unitive mystery, not just in meditation, but in every moment of our lives.

– James Finley

Your Turn

Please write in to comment on or add to any of the items in this month’s newsletter. Let us know if you are aware of an upcoming event you think others should know about, or send us an inspirational quote you’d like to share, or information about a book, website, podcast, or video you recommend. You are invited to contribute by emailing the newsletter editor at news@centeringprayerchicago.org.