Our Mission
We are a center for experiential education, rooted in the Gospels, encouraging the transformation of human consciousness through contemplation, and equipping people to be instruments of peaceful change in the world.
September 19, 2011
West Mesa Rainbow (detail) by © David S. McKee
Contemplation
Step Twelve of Alcoholics Anonymous says that you must pass it on. Unless you give your gift away to at least one other person the other eleven steps lose some of their power. In fact, it is in trying to pass it on that you realize you only half have it—at best! Or you have it in the wrong way—for yourself!
The One Spirit is always and only held communally. It is important to experience Spirit as shared, or we can easily become ego-inflated, most especially by anything religious, moral, or spiritual. The goal is to lessen the fortress of “I,” and not to strengthen my “I” by any separateness or superiority techniques.
There is a deep flow between the one who thinks he is giving and the one who thinks she is receiving. What seems like the obvious flow is very often completely the opposite, and I think this is most deeply what Jesus means when he says “the last will be first and the first will be last.” Very often the supposed receivers are doing all the giving—and neither party even knows that this is what is happening! When you consciously hold a baby, for example, you are usually the receiver.
Adapted from A Lever and A Place to Stand:
The Contemplative Stance, The Active Prayer, p. 9-10
Starter Prayer:
Speak Lord, Your servant listens.
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