Through Love all that is bitter will be sweet.
Through Love all that is copper will be gold.
Through Love all dregs will turn to purest wine.
Through Love all pain will turn to medicine.
Through Love the dead will all become alive.
Through Love the king will turn into a slave!
~ Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi“Silence is God’s first Language.
Everything else is pure translation…”
“Anything we say is only a translation.”
~ Fr. Thomas KeatingWithin this worship gathering we will immerse ourselves in contemplation as we explore Centering Prayer through our silence and meditative reading of the profound mystical words and guidance offered to the world through Father Thomas Keating compiled in the text: Let Love Alone Speak.
“Centering prayer is a training in letting go.” ~ Fr. Thomas Keating
Centering Prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to deepen that relationship. Practice Centering Prayer for a minimum of 20 minutes, twice each day, with the intention of deepening your relationship with God, with others, and yourself…
*Fr. Thomas Keating was an American Catholic monk and priest of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (also know as Trappists).
The Welcoming Prayer by Fr. Keating
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
God’s action within.
Amen
Centering Prayer
ABOUT
Centering Prayer is a method designed to facilitate the development of Contemplative Prayer by preparing our faculties to receive this gift. It is an attempt to present the teaching of earlier times in an updated form.
Interfaith Community Sanctuary’s 2023 Spiritual Discernment i
Transforming the Body, Heart, and Mind
JANUARY: Purifying the Body
FEBRUARY: Cleansing the Heart
MARCH: Observing the Mind
APRIL: Refining the Body
MAY: Educating the Heart
JUNE: Clarifying the Mind
JULY: Relaxing the Body
AUGUST: Surrendering the Heart
SEPTEMBER: Dissolving the Mind
OCTOBER: Finding Balance in the Body
NOVEMBER: Harmonizing the Heart
DECEMBER: Recreating the Mind
Our yearly Spiritual Discernment is reflected in our activities, within our services each Sunday, and within the diverse groups that meet in circle throughout our community.
ABOUT
Reverend Karen Lindquist is co-founder and co-minister of Interfaith Community Sanctuary, a spiritual community grounded in circular leadership principles. She co-creates interfaith services throughout the year at the Sanctuary and with interfaith organizations in the greater Seattle area. For many years she served as a board member on The Interfaith Council of Washington and The Interfaith Network, now known as Northwest Interfaith. Reverend Karen’s regular spiritual practices include deep immersion within the Mevlevi tradition (as a follower of Rumi) with the Mevlevi Order of America and absorption into the mystic tradition of Ecclesia Gnostica through the Hagia Sophia Gnostic Parish.
ABOUT
Michael Bodhi Douglas is an initiated teacher and musician in the Mevlevi Sufi tradition. As a Cherag of the Universal Worship in the Inayati Sufi Order, he leads interfaith worship, guides spiritual practice, and teaches world religions. He is an Associate Minister at Interfaith Community Sanctuary, an icon painter, and a graphic artist. He also works with the Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization dedicated to friendship, love, and truth.
SHARING OUR WEALTH
https://interfaithcommunitysanctuary.org/donate/
Your generous donation allows us to continue offering interfaith worship services, events, classes. Also to continue creating sacred community as well as maintaining a historic building in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. Currently we are in the process of recovering from rain water damage.
Thank you for your help!
Also, your generous DONATION may be mailed to:
Interfaith Community Sanctuary
1763 NW 62nd Street
Seattle, Washington 98107
Land Acknowledgement:
We would like to acknowledge that we gather today on the ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish Peoples, who have lived here from time immemorial. Please join us in expressing our deepest respect and gratitude for our Indigenous neighbors, for their enduring care and protection of our shared lands and waterways.
The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coast Salish languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Salish_languages
Salishan Map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85061837
