By Melanie P. Moore, et al.
Each month, we publish a listing of upcoming contemplative and spiritual opportunities recommended by folks here at The Abbey. Many of us have floundered around in the past looking for community and deep engagement with other pilgrims on the spiritual path. Here we share a curated list of what we are finding, hoping you might find some of it helpful on your journey. We’ve included a Comments section with each listing detailing what we as participants have liked. If you know of something coming up in January or February and would like to have it listed here, please email the information as shown below to [email protected] by December 18 to be included in the post at the beginning of January. Please note that all times are listed in Central Time.
December
Virtual Sit Meditations for Advent (from the Center for Action and Contemplation)
Dates and Times: Sundays Dec. 1, 8, 15, and 22, 10:30 a.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Free
Frequency: Weekly
Duration: 20 minutes
Format: YouTube broadcast
Recording Available: Yes
Description: Advent season can generate a wide array of emotions as we gather with others and reflect on the past year. We invite you to step away from your preparations this holiday season and join us—if only for a moment—in a place of stillness and grace. Join us for free Advent Sits Meditations, guided by Richard Rohr’s book Preparing for Christmas.
Comments: We have done these before and appreciated that it works well with a busy schedule during the season of Advent. Various people from the CAC lead each one, which is lovely; a wonderful Advent practice opportunity.
Darkness is Good: Meister Ekhart Wisdom for Advent (from Spirituality & Practice)
Dates and Times: Sunday, Dec. 1 – Wednesday, Dec. 25,
Registration: Open
Cost: $75
Frequency: Daily
Duration: Varies, this is an email series with one live Zoom session on Dec. 19 at 6 p.m.
Format: Email with one live Zoom session
Recording Available: Yes
Description: Spend each day of Advent this year with Jon M. Sweeney reflecting on Meister Eckhart. The non-dualist medieval Christian mystic (1260 – 1329) teaches that the purpose of life is not finding the light but living gracefully without easy illumination. Eckhart understood hardship; he knew what it was to be empty and losing hope. But it was also at those times when he discovered it was in the bereft moments that he began to locate God—in his emptiness. For Eckhart, this was the same God of the Nativity manger. Advent is about embracing darkness in all of its gifts, which includes, in the end, the most profound reminder of how God is born within us.
Comments: Spirituality & Practice always presents good programs and we especially like that the content is always available to those who register.
Can Science Be a Form of Faith? (from the Center for Christogenesis)
Dates and Times: Friday, Dec. 6, 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Free
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 1 hour
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: A discussion of Teilhard de Chardin’s vision with Ilia Delio and Robert Nicastro. Chardin, a pioneering thinker at the intersection of science and religion, envisioned a cosmos in which matter and spirit are entangled in an evolutionary journey toward ultimate unity. He suggested that science is not only a method for understanding the material world but also a profound source of revelation. In a world fraught with division, fear, and uncertainty, join Ilia and Robert for a discussion on how contemporary science can deepen our sense of the divine, renew our zest for life, and offer direction and hope in a time of crisis.
Comments: Ila Delio is an incredible speaker who is accessible in her presentations of esoteric content. As a scientist and a theologian, she brings continuity and new insights to this convergence of science and spirituality, especially in terms of evolution and, more currently, technology and AI.
Interfaith Advent: Celebrating the Light of Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza Season with Matthew Fox and Friends (from Closer than Breath)
Dates and Times: Saturday, Dec. 7, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Suggested $25 or Pay from the heart
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 2 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: Join this Interfaith Advent celebration to honor the varied Festivals of Light, exploring the mysteries they reveal. This season teaches us of resilience, finding light in the darkness, and the power of community.
We’ll dive into what science reveals about the wonder of light, along with mystics who speak of the “spark of the soul” that never fades—the birth of divinity as a child of light, which each of us carries within.
We will gather for chants, songs, poems, and stories to enrich the sacred season.
Matthew Fox, from the U.S., joins Rev. Nóirín Ní Riain, Owen Ó Súilleabháin, and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin – celebrated performers from Ireland to offer Irish sacred music and storytelling
Comments: We like programs from Closer than Breath, especially the way their programs are organized, the opportunity for interaction, and that the programs are recorded. We fairly recently read Matthew Fox’s Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet, and his program might be an interesting interfaith extension of some of the concepts in Fox’s writing.
Thomas Keating: The Making of A Modern Mystic – A Dialog with Cynthia Bourgeault and David Frenette (from Contemplative Outreach)
Dates and Times: Tuesday, Dec. 10, Noon
Registration: Open
Cost: Free with suggested $25 donation
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 1 hour
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: Available November 26, 2024, Cynthia Bourgeault’s new book, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Mystic, is a much-anticipated portrait of Thomas Keating’s remarkable evolution during the last decades of his life into a fully realized modern-day Christian mystic. This book has rave reviews from Richard Rohr, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Rami Shapiro, Ilia Delio and others.
On the auspicious day of December 10, the 56th anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death, Cynthia and David Frenette will meet together on Zoom to discuss the book, the parallel lives and vision of Keating and Merton and the evolution of the Christian contemplative journey into unitive and nondual consciousness. This discussion celebrates the continuation of these teaching and practices in each of our lives and on behalf of the world.
Comments: Both Cynthia Bourgeault and David Frenette have written books on Centering Prayer. This looks like it would be a very interesting conversation between these two practitioners. We have heard some of the content included in Bourgeault’s book and are eager to read it, especially given Keating’s synthesis of eastern and western spiritual practices. We enjoyed the few times we got to hear Keating speak when he visited Texas in the past.
The Spiritual Unity of Mary, the Mother of Jesus (from Spirituality & Practice)
Dates and Times: Saturday, Dec. 14, Noon – 1:30 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: $55
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: The narrative most Decembers focuses on is the story of the Holy Family of Christianity and especially Mary, the Mother of Jesus. This year we invite you to take a further look at Mary, known as Maryam bint Imran in the traditions of Islam and Sufism. This is an opportunity to experience a deeper understanding of and connection to Mary. In Islam and Islamic mysticism, Maryam bint Imran is beyond being the mother of Jesus. She is a symbol of the ultimate strong woman, devout and determined. She is an example of faith, resilience, and deep devotion to God. She shows us how to be strong and have trust in God, even if everyone else judges us.
Comments: We think this might appeal to those with a devotion to Mary and an interest in Islamic perspective on Mary. We like that the program materials will be available online after the presentation.
The Body is like Mary: An Online Evening Retreat to Deepen into Advent, with Heather Ruce (from the Contemplative Society)
Dates and Times: Monday, Dec. 16, 8:30 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: $40 or “Pay from the heart”
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 2 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: TBD
Description: “The body is like Mary, and each of us has a Jesus inside. Who is not in labour, holy labour? Every creature…God is really there within, so innocently drawing life from us with Her umbilical universe – infinite existence… though also needing to be born. Yes, God also needs to be born!” — Rumi
Advent is a season rich with anticipation as we, alongside Mary, carry and prepare to bear God in our own lives yet again. Christ revealed to the world a life rooted in the heart, at the intersection of time and timelessness. We enter the dark and soft stillness of winter; ripening with courage and surrender to participate in the ongoing co-creation of embodied love in this world. As we anchor in our own awakened hearts, with roots in the finite and the infinite, cultivating our own deep “yes” parallel to Mary’s, we have the opportunity to carry forth tending to the horizontal demands of the season from a profound fullness. Slowing and staying awake to the true meaning of this season and offering the fruits of our awakened hearts.
Join us as we gather together for an Evening Retreat grounded in three-centered Wisdom practices and teaching, sitting and lingering in the quiet, readying our hearts to enter Christmas with humility, compassion, and great love; that we may offer what is needed.
Comments: For those who have a devotion to Mary, or are interested in learning more, this is a compelling offering. We have found Heather Ruce to be an enlightened teacher and effective presenter. A long-time student of Cynthia Bourgeault, she specializes in practices of embodied sprituality and, in our opinon, represents the next wave of leaders in the contemplative wisdom tradition.
Gathering Dharma Series – The Eight Realizations: The Path to Liberation for All with Roshi Joan Halifax
Dates and Times: The final monthly event, Sunday, Dec. 22 Noon – 1:30 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Donation suggested
Frequency: Monthly (this is the final month)
Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: “Gathering Dharma” is about compassion, connection and collective action. It is a time to explore social and environmental engagement and to affirm our vows in a time of great challenge on our earth. During the morning, we will touch into practice, learn together, and open to inquiry.
For each morning program, there will be a Resource Page, and the Zoom video of the morning session will be posted on the Resource Page shortly after the session. We ask that you register for each Sunday you wish to attend, and you will be sent a Zoom link for the gathering and have access to the unique Resource Page. Recordings of the session will be accessible in perpetuity.
Comments: We like Roshi Joan Halifax as well as several of the other leaders who are participating, including Frank Ostaseski and think this series would be a great way to explore compassion, connection, and collective action.
Metanoia Journey’s Sunday In-Person Contemplative Gathering
Dates and Times: Sunday, Dec. 1, 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Registration: Not required
Cost: Free
Frequency: Monthly
Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: In person at The Seminary of the Southwest’s Christ Chapel 501 E 32nd St., Austin, TX
Recording Available: N/A
Description: The format of this gathering will include 20 minutes of Centering Prayer, a scripture reading from the sacred texts, a “message” offered by the ministers or guest speakers, community communion, and contemplative music. We invite anyone who wants to participate in performing a role to let us know. Otherwise, just come, rest in God, and receive.
This is a “contemplative service,” with 20 minutes of silent, meditative prayer. For those that attend that have not practiced Centering Prayer before, we have a copy of the brief Guidelines to practice the prayer available at the entry to the Chapel for people to follow along.
At this time, we do not have an area for children to gather separately or have a children’s ministry. Older children are certainly welcome if they can rest in silence during that time.
Comments: This is an opportunity to connect with other contemplative practitioners in person in Austin. While these are primarily Christian contemplative services, all are welcome.
Integral Light Shining in the Dark: An Advent Teaching by Cynthia Bourgeault (from Wisdom Waypoints)
Dates and Times: Self-paced – recorded event
Registration: Available
Cost: $75
Frequency: Self-paced, see details in description
Duration: The course has more than 15 hours of teaching
Format: Online
Recording Available: Yes
Description: In this groundbreaking teaching, Cynthia Bourgeault takes us on a deep dive into the profoundly Christian and incarnational mysticism at the root of Jean Gebser’s Integral Evolutionary theory. She explores how some of Gebser’s core ideas, particularly around time, transparency, spiritual generativity, and “intensification of the present” open up whole new windows of insight on classic Advent themes. She also explores how the great incarnational themes of Advent illuminate and “shelter” Gebser’s thinking, transforming it from an intellectual tour de force to a luminous offering of the heart—and how the practical, attention-based “exercises” developed by G. I. Gurdjieff can help to “put legs” under the whole enterprise, and offer us a way forward in our own uncertain times.
This material was recorded live at an in-person Advent retreat at Garrison Institute in December 2021. The course now before you consists of over 15 hours of audios from Cynthia’s teaching sessions, plus a short introductory overview of each session. It has been slightly edited for technical clarity but preserves both the content and the flavor of the remarkable original event. These audio teachings were recorded live at an in-person Advent retreat at Garrison Institute in December 2021 and include over 15 hours of content plus a short introductory overview of each session. The audios have been slightly edited for technical clarity but preserves both the content and the flavor of the remarkable original event.
Comments: Note the following from Wisdom Waypoints: “Some prior familiarity with the teaching of Jean Gebser is strongly recommended, but not required. If you’re a newcomer to the Gebserian terrain and Gebser’s five-hundred page masterpiece The Ever-Present Origin feels a bit daunting, Jeremy Johnson’s Seeing Through the World offers a concise and enormously helpful overview. Learn more here. You may also want to read Cynthia’s 14-part blog series: Exploring Jean Gebser.”
Blue Christmas Services
For those who find holidays challenging, here is a list of “Blue Christmas” services, all online and free:
- Blue Christmas Service at Bethany United Methodist, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 6 – 7 p.m.
- Longest Night Service at University United Methodist, Saturday, Dec. 21, 7 – 8 p.m.
- The Longest Night: A Service of Wholeness and Healing – Westminster Presbyterian Church, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 6 – 6:45 p.m.
- In Memoriam Service at Riverbend Church, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2 – 4 p.m.
- Blue Christmas Holy Eucharist at St. David’s Episcopal Church, Friday, Dec. 20,
February
Silence as Presence: A Silent Wisdom Retreat with Cynthia Bourgeault
Dates and Times: Thursday, Feb. 20 – Tuesday, Feb. 25
Registration: Open for Zoom; Waitlist available for in-person retreat
Cost: $250 (Zoom only)
Frequency: One-time event
Duration: 5 days
Format: In-person (waitlist) and Zoom
Recording Available: Usually, for a limited time for participants.
Description: In this Silent Wisdom Retreat, Cynthia Bourgeault will focus on what contemplation needs in order to mature to the next step where it is pointing, beyond a lifestyle that favors silence, toward a capacity to directly encounter silence as a presence. Drawing on the teachings from her new book, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic, we will explore this capacity which Keating was talking about so much in the final five years of his life. We are invited to take contemplation beyond going quietly into the silence and emptying our minds to vaguely sense the presence of God for self-calming and self-righting. And instead to cultivate the capacity to encounter a more subtle communication in which we are directly face to face with the assistance we receive from the imaginal realm, from the Great Chain of Being. As we begin to taste for ourselves a whole sensation of silence as subtle presence, we can learn to become proficient navigating the streams and currents of the information that gets contained in these transformations.
ogether we will engage a daily rhythm with centering prayer or silent meditation, chanting, teaching, time to be in the desert, optional yoga, Lectio Divina, and Sacred Movements, all in the container of the Great Silence.
Comments: For anyone interested in a deep immersion, following the rhythms of a Bourgeault retreat (Centering Prayer, chanting, movements), this is a wonderful opportunity to participate online. This seems to be an accessible entry point for those who have not participated before, as well as a meaningful experience for those who are familiar with Bourgeault’s retreats. There is always a lot of teaching material provided and the recording is nice for participants to revisit portions or all of the material.
Ongoing
Contemplative Chant
Dates and Times: Wednesdays at 4 p.m.
Registration: Open
Cost: Free
Frequency: Ongoing
Duration: 30 minutes
Format: Online
Recording Available: No
Description: 30 minutes of contemplative chant from Wisdom Waypoints, with chants led by Susan Latimer and Elizabeth Combs. Chanting is a wonderful practice for bringing both the Moving Center (body, breath, tone) and the Emotional Center (open heart) online. It is a spiritual practice that opens our hearts, nourishes our nervous systems, prepares us for prayer and meditation as a bridge into stillness, and connects us to our innate joy, courage, steadfastness, peace, beauty, truth and goodness. In times of great uncertainty and change, we find chant to be one of the things that most grounds us. These sessions draw chants from Wisdom Schools, various spiritual and religious traditions, sacred texts, old hymns and poetry. Because of the limitations of synching sound on Zoom, all participants are muted except for the one leading. This allows everyone to chant along in their own space. (Great if you are shy about sharing your voice! Fun if you like to try harmonies!)
Comments: Some of us join this contemplative chant weekly and enjoy it very much. We find it a wonderful contemplative practice. Wisdom Waypoints is the wisdom community started by Cynthia Bourgeault, one of our favorite wisdom teachers. Note that this is a small and warm group of regular participants. Therefore, it can be more difficult to participate anonymously.
The Abbey Tuesday Morning Meditation
Dates and Times: Tuesdays at 8 a.m. (Meditation at 8 a.m., optional discussion at 8:30 a.m.)
Registration: Open
Cost: Free
Frequency: Weekly
Duration: Ongoing
Format: Zoom
Recording Available: No
Description: A 20-minute sit, followed by a brief reading and discussion.
Comments: Of course we love this meditation group! It’s The Abbey, our own contemplative community.
The Abbey Spiritual Discussion Group
Dates and Times: Thursdays, 5 p.m.
Registration: Not required
Cost: Free
Frequency: Weekly
Duration: 1 hour
Format: Zoom
Recording Available: No
Description: This group reads books to deepen our spiritual lives and to build community among participants. Newcomers are welcome to join the group anytime. Register on The Abbey website and we will send you a Zoom link.
Comments: The group is starting a new book this month (October), Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World. We enjoy this group and the lively discussion both in small-group breakout rooms and with the whole group.
Word of the Week
Dates and Times: Emails sent on Sundays, meets each Tuesday at 8 a.m. and Wednesday at 5 p.m.
Registration: Sign up for weekly emails here.
Cost: Free annual subscription (with recommended donation of $95/yr)
Frequency: Weekly, per above
Duration: One hour
Format: Zoom – link is sent weekly in the email on Sunday
Recording Available: No
Description: A beautiful email is sent on Sundays with the reading of Lectio Divina that will be done. There is a sit and then the Lectio Divina.
Comments: We like this because it’s a chance to revisit the reading for the week—and they always include beautiful artwork (it’s Lectio and Visio Divina!). We like the sense of community. It’s a pretty stable group and there’s a chance to share. We also like the balance of it—they are very mindful of the time, it’s just an hour. There’s a rhythm of it that we like. We read the emails each week and appreciate having the email in advance to sit with it a little before the group reading. There are also opportunities to interact online with the group during the week. We will note that it can be difficult to find the link for the Zoom in the weekly email; it is also spelled out here—the third bullet has link to the zoom with poorly brown highlighted “Click on this link,” but it also provides the zoom code and passcode in the email.
Wisdom Waypoints Daily Centering Prayer/Meditation
Dates and Times: Monday – Friday 9:30 a.m.; Monday/Wednesday/Sunday 6 p.m.; Saturday 10:30 a.m.
Registration: No registration required, join via website
Cost: Free
Frequency: Daily, per above
Duration: 30 minutes
Format: Zoom
Recording Available: No
Description: A collective wisdom pause for “Silence and Stillness.” Wisdom members lead each sit with a brief reading, chant, and meditation/stillness.
Comments: We like this because it is a way to maintain our personal practice alongside others with the degree of anonymity (or not) with which we are each comfortable. Wisdom Waypoints is a part of Cynthia Bourgeault’s network of teaching and practice resources.