Contemplative Living I: Contemplative Practices in Daily Life

September 9 – December 2, 2023

Course Description:

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

"Contemplative life begins when when 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 a four-month long online course is the beginning of the Contemplative Living concentration for the Certificate in Spiritual Formation.  This study is an experiential course that guides 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 meeting, weekly online meditation chapel, and personal practices. 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 amid ordinary 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 us 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 and listening for how God is speaking to us in the passage.
• The Active Prayer – a prayer phrase or sentence that we create or take from Scripture or another meaningful reading and repeat throughout our day.
• Lectio Divina – praying with Scripture, allowing the meaning of the text and the experience of God to deepen.
• The Welcoming Prayer – welcoming God into whatever we are experiencing in daily life—thoughts, emotions, body sensation, commentaries.
• Resting in God and Sabbath-keeping – resting is the state of interior silence we experience in daily life through contemplative prayer. Observing Sabbath awakens us to this inner state.

Objectives

• To Establish a daily practice of Centering Prayer;
• To Integrate contemplative practices into daily life;
• To Cultivate contemplative attitudes and disposition.

Location: Online

With: Julie Saad. Julie Saad is a spiritual director, author, teacher, and retreat leader. Since 1994 she has been a student of Thomas Keating (1923-2018), a Trappist monk who was a founding member and spiritual guide for Contemplative Outreach. Julie has also served Contemplative Outreach as a coordinator of the Denver Chapter, facilitator of spiritual journey courses and retreats, member of the Governing Board, and coordinator of the Contemplative Living Experience Program. She has been practicing and teaching Centering Prayer and other contemplative practices for over 25 years. She recently published the book Contemplative Life: Discovering Our Path into the Heart of God, a guidebook to spiritual formation in the Christian contemplative tradition, based o the teaching of Thomas Keating.

Schedule: Contemplative Living I consists of four monthly, synchronous teachings and practices with individual study and devotion between the monthly sessions:

• 6 hour monthly synchronous sessions
• 1 hour weekly virtual prayer chapel

The synchronous monthly session meets from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM Eastern Time on the following Saturdays:

Contemplative Living I: Sep 9, Oct 7, Nov 4, and Dec 2, 2023

Program Fee: $700, early registration discount fee $650 through August 8, 2023

Contact: lifelonglearning@ctsnet.edu