Preview
New Year, new beginnings. Our January issue features:
- Information about how you can participate in two programs offered by Contemplative Outreach Chicago: Centering Prayer Weekend Immersion and Living Flame 2
- A pair of thoughtful reflections on recent history, offered by Alan Krema and Nancy Sylvester, IHM
- A remembrance of Rev. Ken Sedlak, CssR.
- Sandra Janowski’s thoughts inspired by a modern translation of a well-known scripture passage
- A reminder to save the dates in mid-June for our 2021 Intensive and Post-Intensive Retreats
- Our monthly listing of additional online and in-person contemplative events
- Insights from Kuya Minogue, Yung-chia Ta-shih, Thomas Keating and Martin Luther King, Jr.
We would love to hear from you! Please give us your thoughts on Spirit Journal by emailing the editor at the address provided at the end of the newsletter.
Centering Prayer: Weekend Immersion – the 2021 Winter Weekend Retreat Coming February 12-14
Contemplative Outreach Chicago is sponsoring this online 2021 Winter Weekend Retreat, with Alan Krema as retreat guide.
The retreat will immerse us into three days of Centering Prayer with attentiveness to our activities between the meditation sessions. We will explore awareness of our being and openness to the presence resident in our bodies. We will listen to the calling of living into abundance and liberation. This comes with responsibility to remove the obstacles we have in us, arising from the addictive and reactive structures that restrict our growth.
There is no charge for this retreat (you will have the option of making a free-will donation, if you like, after registering). Please click here for more information and registration.
Living Flame 2: Seven Steps Along the Contemplative Path – Program Continues January 30
The Living Flame 2 program had its first online meeting via Zoom earlier this month. However, you may still sign up for the six remaining sessions, beginning with a workshop on Lectio Divina on January 30.
All workshops are led by commissioned presenters from the service teams within Contemplative Outreach’s national organization. Designed to teach the vital conceptual background needed to support a faithful practice of Centering Prayer, the program also offers encouragement and support in a small community setting, heightens the awareness of the transformation process, helps discern when psychological skills can be helpful tools, and provides the opportunity to give and receive spiritual companionship.
Participants should have a regular Centering Prayer practice and be familiar with Thomas Keating’s key ideas and some of his writings, such as Open Mind, Open Heart or The Human Condition. Click these links for more complete information about the series or for a chance to register.
Two Reflections on Recent History
Part of Who I Am
by Alan Krema
On the day of the fatal attack on our nation’s capitol, an event earlier this month which has shaken our nation to its core, I was struck by a revelation as I listened to Ibram X. Kendi being interviewed on PBS. He was asked, what does all this tell you?
His response sunk into me and it has stayed with me. He said that this is who we are. The people who perpetrated this violence and who brought the confederate flag into our nation’s capital are a part of America and of our legacy.
I realize that no matter what my personal thoughts will tell me about who and what I would like to be and who I would like to think I am, that I in fact am a white American who is part of the whole of our society. I have to recognize this as part of who I am as an American.
I am able to own this in great part because of the work I have done in the last year. The books, such as Kendi’s, and others. The contemplative groups I am in that have attempted to articulate our role in our society, and much prayer.
The Revolution That Begins Within
by Nancy Sylvester, IHM
(Adapted from an item published in the Global Sisters Report, January 2021.)
Having walked the halls of the US Capitol for fifteen years, the violent assault on January 6 was quite visceral for me. It only confirms my belief that having my side or position win does not bring about lasting change. It may bring about some policy shifts but if we don’t address the legitimate needs and concerns of everyone, including those that lost, the change we hope for is temporary.
How to do that is our challenge, and taking on that challenge, rooted in a contemplative heart is the focus of the Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue’s program called Enter the Chaos: Engage the Differences to Make a Difference.
Learn more about:
Enter the Chaos: Engage the Differences to Make a Difference
There are programs scheduled on Zoom this February, March and April.
Too often, the losing side watches the clock between elections. A massive amount of money is raised and spent on getting candidates, increasingly ideological and partisan, to run for office. Once they are in power, the advances of the previous administration are often reversed, and new policies are put in place. The cycle begins again.
What happened on Jan. 6 makes that approach untenable. The stakes are too high and the divisions too great to do what we usually do. There has to be a national effort to begin to repair the great divide among us as a nation. That effort must seep down into each of our families and local communities. And it needs to start with each one of us.
Remembering Ken Sedlak and The Way of Wandering
by Alan Krema
Our dear friend, spiritual guide, and meditation facilitator, Rev. Ken Sedlak, CssR., passed into the communion of saints on December 19, 2020 after long illness in the St. Clements Healthcare facility in Liguori, Mo.
Ken was the founder of the Centering Prayer group at St. Mikes Old Town, Chicago in 1999. Until the recent pandemic, this Monday night group has been meeting regularly ever since. I first attended in 1999 and have been privileged to meet many participants of this group who have been touched by the expansive Being of Ken’s life. When I joined, the group had been going for some months prior. I remember Ken was a key person but he was not the facilitator. True to his calling, he made the environment inviting and accessible, then let others find their flowering in the group. He started Pathways Spirituality Resource at St. Mike’s, which included meditation, retreats, evening gatherings, and many forms of prayer that called out to others to feel love and wholeness.
During our 20 years with Ken, of course, we all discovered that love is a process of growth. There is no endpoint, no achievement, no certificate of completing the course of our life. If you were late for our gathering, Ken would often chide you with the welcome, “well we just figured out the ultimate answer of life and you missed it!”
Save the Dates: 2021 Intensive and Post Intensive Retreats June 13-19 at the Siena Retreat Center, Racine Wisconsin
An Intensive Retreat is an opportunity to deepen the practice of Centering Prayer in an atmosphere of profound silence and community support. There are up to six 30-minute Centering Prayer periods daily, supported with viewing a selection of the Spiritual Journey video series by Fr. Thomas Keating. Private interviews with the retreat guides can also be scheduled. The Post-Intensive Retreat is offered for those who have previously taken part in an Intensive Retreat. It provides an opportunity to deepen the practice of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina. There are up to seven 30-minute periods of Centering Prayer daily.Participants observe Sacred Silence four days during the retreat.
Next summer’s retreats are offered June 13-19 at the lovely Siena Retreat Center in Racine, 83 miles north of Chicago on the Lake Michigan shore. The retreat guides are Ann Koerner, CSA and Sandra Janowski. Ann is a Sister of St. Agnes and holds a Masters in Christian Spirituality from Creighton University in Omaha NE. Since 1986 she has been a spiritual companion and retreat director. Sandra is a retired Social Worker, Addiction Counselor and Community College Adjunct Instructor. In 2009 she was commissioned by the Institute of Spiritual Companionship and has been a practitioner of Centering Prayer since 2001.
Click here to download more complete information about the retreats and a chance to register.
Highlighted Events and Resources
You may wish to participate in some of these additional local, regional, and online events:
Enneagram and Centering Payer Workshops at Healing Gardens
Healing Gardens, the lovely, park-like contemplative center in St. Charles has announced a number of 2021 activities:
- Enneagram Workshop, Level 1: Saturday March 13, 8:45 to 11:30am and 12:30-2:30pm via Zoom
- Introductory Centering Prayer Workshop: Saturday, April 17, 8:45am-1:00pm via Zoom
Centering Prayer Groups via Zoom
Here are four invitations to gather with Chicago-area Centering Prayer groups via Zoom. Listed below are the groups, times, and contact information.
- St. Clement’s Centering Prayer Group every Saturday 9:30-10:30am. Contact Bill Epperly at bill@integralawakenings.com
- St. Katharine Drexel Church every Tuesday 8:30-9:30am. Contact Lori Dressel at lorijdressel@gmail.com
- The Healing Gardens second Friday of each month, 10:30am-12:30pm. Also, Centering Prayer with Lectio Divina, last Friday of each month, 10:30am-11:30pm. Contact Deb Marqui at deb@dmarqui.com or text/call 630-740-259.
- Permanent Zoom group (not associated with an in-person group) Tuesday 6:00 – 7:00pm. Contact Rose Magiera for link and phone number – rmmagiera@gmail.com
Bill Epperly has also invited everyone to Interspiritual Sundays which gathers Sunday from 9:00-10:00am. n 2018. You may contact Bill at bill@integralawakenings.com and he’ll be happy to share more information with you.
(Other Centering Prayer groups may also wish to consider meeting online for now. If you need help in setting up, please contact Sandy Janowski: sandyandkali@sbcglobal.net)
Offerings in the Contemplative Outreach Meditation Chapel
The national website of our parent organization features an Online Meditation Chapel that is very easy to use and provides the opportunity to see, hear and join in silent prayer with others from all over the world. You must first register to attend the meetings in the Chapel. You can do that by using the calendar link. Once you know what chapel your desired meeting is in, use the chapel link.
Meditation Groups – Groups meet via Zoom at all hours of the day and night and are open to anyone. There is no cost/fee to attend, charging is prohibited. A friend writes: “I have been attending meditation in the virtual Keating Chapel and had a lovely experience. The facilitator was very good!” For further information, visit the calendar or chapel listing.
Healing Together: A Gathering of Consciousness – In silence we focus on an intention for peace and healing in 2020. The format is an opening prayer, a short reading, two 25-minute sessions of silent prayer with a short break in-between and closing prayer. These sessions are scheduled every Thursday from 11:00am to 12:00pm Central Time (US & Ca) in the Thomas Keating Chapel with Mary Lapham. You can contact Mary at marylapham2@gmail.com.
Please let us know about any additional events and resources you’re aware of. Write to: news@centeringprayerchicago.org
Insights
In the next week, notice the various ways in which you look to the future to bring you lasting happiness. Then see true happiness right here, right now.
– Kuya Minogue
One Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all natures, One Reality, all-comprehensive, contains within itself all realities. The one Moon reflects itself wherever there is a sheet of water, and all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one Moon.
– Yung-chia Ta-shih
God’s top priority is the creation of a world in which the goods of the earth are equitably distributed, where no one is forgotten or left out, and where no one can rest until everyone has enough to eat, the oppressed have been liberated, and justice and peace are the norm among the nations and religions of the world. Until then, even the joy of transforming union is incomplete.
– Thomas Keating
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Your Turn
Please write in to contribute your ideas or to comment on any aspect of Spirit Journal. 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 can contribute by emailing the newsletter editor at news@centeringprayerchicago.org.