Incarnational Contemplation

The orientation of Incarnational Contemplation is towards practicing and living the contemplative life in our ordinary worlds.  Just as everything in our inner world is all in God, so too is everything in our outer world: the activities, joys, passions and challenges of existence.

In Incarnational Contemplation the divine is found and expressed in human life:  searching for a job,  birthing a child, washing the dishes, helping others, confronting injustice. In a radical yet simple way they are in God when there is no search for meaning, perfection or God beyond them.

Incarnational Contemplation:

• Renews the ways and practices of coming to union with Christ and unity in God
• Presents a comprehensive and usable contemplative path for people in ordinary life
• Realizes the interdependence of all humanity and all creation through awareness of Christ’s love

Centering Prayer

The famous contemplative of the middle ages, Meister Eckhart said that we need to practice the contemplative life, just as a violinist needs to practice the violin. Praying into the depths of our own being where God dwells as a living presence requires practice.

With daily practice of a method like Centering Prayer, the usually unheard music of God begins to flow through us, playing through us in our lives, playing us in life.

If you want this intention summed up in a word, to retain it more easily, take a short word, preferably of one syllable, to do so…And fix this word fast to your heart…if you are ever tempted to think what it is that you are seeking, this one word will be sufficient answer.               The Cloud of Unknowing

David Frenette

David Frenette has taught Centering Prayer under Father Thomas Keating’s guidance since 1984, including as a trainer for long-term practitioners in Contemplative Outreach. He cofounded and co-led a Centering Prayer retreat community for ten years.

He now teaches and gives spiritual direction at the Center for Contemplative Living in Denver, is an Adjunct Faculty in the Religious Studies Department at Naropa University, and has an M.A. in Counseling Psychology.

Spiritual Direction

Having difficulty with your Centering Prayer practice? Feeling alienated from God, other people, yourself? Seeking companionship and guidance from someone who has themselves traveled the journey? Interested in learning the hidden treasures in Father Thomas Keating’s teachings?

Find out more about how Spiritual Direction can help you and set up sessions with David Frenette.

Training

Training in Deepening Centering Prayer gives you a very developed yet still simple practice to more easily deepen your Centering Prayer into the freedom of contemplation. Greater human skillfulness in prayer opens you to the abundance of divine grace.  Greater depth brings greater freedom, greater life, greater ability to serve others.

Who is the Christian God?

In the Christian Contemplative tradition God is much more than an object of belief. God is an intimate presence within you, a transforming fire that burns away any obstacle to your full union with Christ. God a reality in which all of your life is found.

It is in God that we live and move and have our being. Acts 17: 28