Contemplative Living I: Contemplative Practices in Daily Life – via Zoom

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.
– Ezekiel 36:26

“Contemplative life begins when we take the first step into the silence of our heart. It’s a pilgrimage—a journey that takes us first to the inner reaches of who we really are, and from there, into the life we were meant to live.”
– Julie Saad, Contemplative Life: Discovering Our Path Into the Heart of God

This four-month long online course is experiential, guiding participants to deepen their experience of the abiding presence of God by cultivating their contemplative capacities. Participants will learn and integrate contemplative spiritual practices into daily life within a community of seekers through monthly meetings, a weekly online prayer chapel, personal practices, and monthly Holy Listening Circles (group spiritual direction). Contemplative practices are the doorway into the gift of contemplative prayer where the journey that begins in the silence of our hearts leads us into the heart of God. As we cultivate contemplative practices in ordinary daily life, we begin to experience oneness with God and all creation.

The design of Contemplative Living I: Contemplative Practices in Daily Life:

Learning, cultivating and integrating into daily life the contemplative practices of

• Centering Prayer – a silent Christian contemplative (meditation) practice.
• Logging – a form of expressive writing designed to help you understand and deal with thoughts, memories, worries, commentaries, and afflictive emotions and the resulting behaviors.
• Spiritual Reading – using a spiritual book, reading for formation rather than information, listening for how God is speaking to you in the passage.
• The Active Prayer – a prayer phrase or sentence that you create or take from Scripture or another meaningful reading and repeat throughout your day.
• Lectio Divina – praying with Scripture, allowing the meaning of the text and the experience of God to grow deeper.
• The Welcoming Prayer – welcoming God into whatever you are experiencing in daily life—thoughts, emotions, body sensation, or commentaries.
• Resting in God and Sabbath-keeping – resting is the state of interior silence that you experience in daily life through contemplative prayer. Sabbath-keeping awakens you to this inner state.
• Holy Listening – Cultivating receptivity to attune to your inner wisdom, to God, and to the movement of the Divine in others.

Please see the link below to register.