SLT Meeting Minutes from Sept 26, 2020

 

In attendance: Linda Dollins, Mary Williams, Diane Langworthy, Rick Martin, Kathy Agnew, Diane Oldfield, Jan Simpson, Patti Smith, Susan Wheeler.

Opening: The meeting began at 9:35 via Zoom. In the interest of keeping the Zoom meeting to 90 minutes or less, Mary led a 10-minute period of Centering Prayer.

Reports from Teams and Team Leaders:

• COSD Liaison Update: Diane Langworthy noted that the COSD Team Leaders last met in June. There have been tentative plans for an outdoor workshop on the Desert Fathers and Mothers at Mission San Luis Rey in February 2021; currently this is unlikely to occur. COSD will have a Prayer Group Facilitator meeting on Wednesday, Sep. 30.

• Media Librarian: Diane Oldfield reports that she can mail CDs and DVDs out to those who request them.

• Prayer Group Facilitator Support: Kathy Agnew is seeking input for the next Facilitator Bulletin: resources for Advent, stories about prayer-group Zoom experiences, and material related to the pandemic experience. As a follow-up to the August Facilitator Bulletin on the issue of politics in prayer groups, Diane Langworthy suggested including a link to Richard Rohr’s recent message on political divisiveness: "Some Simple but Urgent Guidance to Get Us Through These Next Months."

In the future, Kathy would also like to include a forum for facilitators in which they would speak from the heart about their experiences leading prayer groups – possibly titled “Heartspeak,” or “Sharings of Contemplative Wisdom.”

Kathy and Linda agreed that we need to have a meeting for Prayer Group Facilitators, as there has not been one in quite some time. Linda suggested that facilitators might share responses to questions such as: “Where are you in this? How is your prayer group doing? What are your concerns?” with an emphasis on answering from the heart.

Diane Langworthy suggested holding an hour-and-a-half retreat for Prayer Group Facilitators on Zoom.

Mary shared some updates to the “Be Still” blog: more Facilitator Resources, a link to SLT meeting minutes, and a Lectio Divina Template archive.

• Financial Report: Linda, as temporary Treasurer, reported that CONSD receives monthly donations from a couple of individuals. There have been a few expenses incurred for technical resources for Mary. The chapter’s SDCCU account has a balance of $10,174. Prince of Peace Abbey is still holding our $3900 deposit that had been intended for the Deepening retreat this past April -- canceled due to COVID. This deposit can be used for the three-day fall retreat in October 2021 or any future CONSD event at the Abbey.

Linda suggested that we might consider helping to start a new CO chapter in the Temecula area.

• Communications: Diana Conner has retired from serving as webmaster and newsletter formatter. Mary is asking for volunteers to help with the website and the newsletter. She particularly needs someone who is familiar with Wordpress – or suggestions on eventually hiring someone to update and maintain the CONSD website. She is also seeking contributors to write reflections for the CONSD Newsletter. Reviews on books about contemplative prayer or responses on books by contemplative writers are very welcome. Jan Simpson suggested that Prayer Group Facilitators could share their reflections on books that their groups are reading together.

• Events: Linda recently sent a questionnaire to Facilitators to get input from the people in their prayer groups about future CONSD events that would be offered via Zoom. In response: 22 people are interested in a 2-hour morning retreat based on a specific theme (like Henri Nouwen’s Prodigal Son), 14 people are interested a 2-hr retreat/workshop featuring a guest speaker, 7 people are interested in a multi-week course (like last year’s “Human Condition” course facilitated by Patti Smith), and 8 would be interested in a Lectio-Divina retreat/workshop. Pat Julian suggested Catherine Doherty, the founder of Madonna House, as a speaker. Another person suggested teachings on spiritual practices that complement Centering Prayer.

Patti Smith is open to leading a class that would include time for centering prayer, a Spiritual Journey video by Keating, and time for sharing. Linda suggested that the class could be limited to watching ½ hour (instead of an hour) of the video each time to keep the Zoomed meetings to around 90 minutes.

Patti also pointed out that the Denver Center for Contemplative Living (centeringprayer.net) is willing to share their courses, resources, and offerings worldwide. Also: Brother Micah, from St. Benedict's Monastery at Snowmass, is very good at leading Lectio Divina workshops.

Diane Langworthy noted that Eventbrite is a good resource to use to register people and receive donations for Zoom events. Also, Linda Hall-Phoenix, a harpist in her prayer group, would likely be willing to play the harp at retreats and workshops offered over Zoom. Diane's additional suggestion for a prayer-group facilitator Zoom retreat would be to have facilitators engage in the practices detailed in the appendices to Richard Rohr’s book, The Universal Christ.

Mary mentioned that CONSD could offer scholarships to people of limited income who would like to attend CONSD-recommended courses and workshops that require a registration fee.

• Other Concerns:

--The SLT voted unanimously to send a $100 donation to the Washington DC / Maryland CO Chapter. Their chapter coordinator, Martha Johnston, has allowed CONSD to share her Lectio Divina templates with our facilitators via our “Be Still” blog.

--Several people brought up the fact that a recent recording of an Introductory Centering Prayer Workshop facilitated by LJ Milone and Fr. Carl Arico is now available on YouTube. We can share this link to people and/or groups who are interested in an Intro or a Centering Prayer refresher.

--Calendar updates: A possible early December Advent retreat via Zoom. Next SLT Meeting: January 9, 2021. United in Prayer Day via Zoom: March 21, 2021 March 6, 2021 [updated by CO, Ltd. in 1/21]. Prince of Peace Fall Retreat: tentatively scheduled for Oct. 15-17, 2021.

--Susan Wheeler would be willing to take registrations for Zoom events through email.

• Susan offered up a closing prayer, and the meeting was adjourned at 11:00.

Respectfully submitted,   ~Mary Williams

"Simple But Urgent Guidance to Get Us Through These Next Months"

 A note from Richard Rohr: 

I awoke on Saturday, September 19, with three sources in my mind for guidance: Etty Hillesum (1914 – 1943), the young Jewish woman who suffered much more injustice in the concentration camp than we are suffering now; Psalm 62, which must have been written in a time of a major oppression of the Jewish people; and the Irish Poet, W.B.Yeats (1965 – 1939), who wrote his “Second Coming” during the horrors of the World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic.  These three sources form the core of my invitation. Read each one slowly as your first practice. Let us begin with Etty: There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too … And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. —Etty Hillesum, Westerbork transit camp Note her second-person usage, talking to “You, God” quite directly and personally. There is a Presence with her, even as she is surrounded by so much suffering. Then, the perennial classic wisdom of the Psalms: In God alone is my soul at rest. God is the source of my hope. In God I find shelter, my rock, and my safety. Men are but a puff of wind, Men who think themselves important are a delusion. Put them on a scale, They are gone in a puff of wind. —Psalm 62:5–9 What could it mean to find rest like this in a world such as ours? Every day more and more people are facing the catastrophe of extreme weather. The neurotic news cycle is increasingly driven by a single narcissistic leader whose words and deeds incite hatred, sow discord, and amplify the daily chaos. The pandemic that seems to be returning in waves continues to wreak suffering and disorder with no end in sight, and there is no guarantee of the future in an economy designed to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and those subsisting at the margins of society.  It’s no wonder the mental and emotional health among a large portion of the American population is in tangible decline! We have wholesale abandoned any sense of truth, objectivity, science or religion in civil conversation; we now recognize we are living with the catastrophic results of several centuries of what philosophers call nihilism or post-modernism (nothing means anything, there are no universal patterns). We are without doubt in an apocalyptic time (the Latin word apocalypsis refers to an urgent unveiling of an ultimate state of affairs). Yeats’ oft-quoted poem “The Second Coming” then feels like a direct prophecy. See if you do not agree: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Somehow our occupation and vocation as believers in this sad time must be to first restore the Divine Center by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves. If contemplation means anything, it means that we can “safeguard that little piece of You, God,” as Etty Hillesum describes it. What other power do we have now? All else is tearing us apart, inside and out, no matter who wins the election or who is on the Supreme Court. We cannot abide in such a place for any length of time or it will become our prison. God cannot abide with us in a place of fear. God cannot abide with us in a place of ill will or hatred. God cannot abide with us inside a nonstop volley of claim and counterclaim. God cannot abide with us in an endless flow of online punditry and analysis. God cannot speak inside of so much angry noise and conscious deceit. God cannot be found when all sides are so far from “the Falconer.” God cannot be born except in a womb of Love. So offer God that womb. Stand as a sentry at the door of your senses for these coming months, so “the blood-dimmed tide” cannot make its way into your soul. If you allow it for too long, it will become who you are, and you will no longer have natural access to the “really deep well” that Etty Hillesum returned to so often and that held so much vitality and freedom for her. If you will allow, I recommend for your spiritual practice for the next four months that you impose a moratorium on exactly how much news you are subject to—hopefully not more than an hour a day of television, social media, internet news, magazine and newspaper commentary, and/or political discussions. It will only tear you apart and pull you into the dualistic world of opinion and counter-opinion, not Divine Truth, which is always found in a bigger place. Instead, I suggest that you use this time for some form of public service, volunteerism, mystical reading from the masters, prayer—or, preferably, all of the above.         You have much to gain now and nothing to lose. Nothing at all.          And the world—with you as a stable center—has nothing to lose.         And everything to gain.  ~Richard Rohr, September 19, 2020, Center for Action and Contemplation

Lectio Divina Template 26

 "The peace of God ... will guard your hearts..."

We invite you to a few minutes of silence before we begin our prayer time together.

Take a deep breath and breathe in the breath of God, knowing by faith that God breathes into us the breath of life.

Lectio Divina Template 25

 "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ..."

We invite you to a few minutes of silence before we begin our prayer time together.

Take a deep breath and breathe in the breath of God, knowing by faith that God breathes into us the breath of life.

Lectio Divina Template 24

 "Christ will be magnified . . ."

We invite you to a few minutes of silence before we begin our prayer time together.

Take a deep breath and breathe in the breath of God, knowing by faith that God breathes into us the breath of life.

Lectio Divina Template 23

 "How often must I forgive?"

We invite you to a few minutes of silence before we begin our prayer time together.

Take a deep breath and breathe in the breath of God, knowing by faith that God breathes into us the breath of life.