Advent Longing

Photo Credit: Xolob58
on Flickr.com

As we enter Advent - the season of Expectation and Hope,
I invite you let surface your Holy Longing for God.
Try to find some quiet time every day to sense your deepest need.

You, God, who live next door -

If at times, through the long night, I trouble you
with my urgent knocking -
this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.
I know you’re all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there’s no one
to get you a glass of water.
I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!
I’m right here.
As it happens, the wall between us
is very thin. Why couldn’t a cry
from one of us
break it down? It would crumble
easily,


it would barely make a sound. 


Rainer Maria Rilke


Please check out an Advent Contemplative Fire resource here.

Living the Mystery Retreat Day - The Labyrinth

Our next event is a "Living the Mystery" Retreat day about the Labyrinth.
We are pleased to have Canon Paddy Doran to lead us in an experience of the Labyrinth.

Photo: Lars Hammar on Flickr.com

This retreat will run from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M.
Saturday, 17 September 2011
at St. George's Church, Lowville
map here.
Please bring your own packed lunch.
Coffee, Tea, Juice and water will be provided.
Cost is $25 for the day (if you need a bursary to assist you with this fee, just email Stuart here.)
There will be time to learn about the Labyrinth,
time to experience it
and space for stillness, refreshment, journalling and insight!
All people are welcome to join us for this event.
Please pre-register using the form to the right ---->
Don't forget to hit the "Register Now" button.
Book early as space is limited!
Please pay in cash on the day of the event.

Creation's Song - A Gathering

Photo credit:
andycoan on Flickr.com

Our next gathering is June 19th at 7 P.M.
at the Great Hall - 1382 Ontario Street, Burlington, Ontario.

God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.
Come and celebrate creation with us.

You will experience:
  Wale Song
     Stillness
         A Creation Labyrinth
            A sense of your own creation
                A reminder that all of creation is grounded in the being of God.

Please bring your family and friends and let's celebrate together!

Pilgrimage to Now/Here

Photocredit: SPhilip1225 on Flickr.com

Contemplative Fire Niagara is holding an Awareness Walk on Saturday, May 29th from 9 A.M. to noon at Lowville Park in Lowville, Ontario, 20 minutes north of Burlington on Guelph Line.
Everyone bring their own snack. This will include a hike in silence in twos or threes. A time to snack and share your insights and a teaching on walking meditation. Bring along those who you think would enjoy this time. For more information, please speak with Stuart at 905-634-1826 or email me here.
Map of Lowville Park

Inscription for a Garden Gate


Pause, friend, and read before you enter here
This vine-clad wall encloses Holy Ground.
  Herein a mellowed garden dreams
                           away the years.
Steeped in serene, sweet light
                    and muted sound.
Herein tranquility and peace abide.
  For God walks here at cool of
                               evening-tide.
Pause, friend, and strip from out
                                     your heart
All vanity, all bitterness, all hate:
Quench, for this hour, the fever
                            of your fears.
Then, treading softly, pass within
                                   this gate.
There, where the ancient trees wait,
                            hushed and dim.
May you find God, and walk awhile with Him.
                      written by Pearl C. Hiatt

Contemplative Fire Recommends:

We would encourage the Contemplative Fire community to attend a Retreat Day organized by Christ's Church Cathedral Called:

Thin Places - Where the Divine Breaks Through
This will be an exploration of Celtic Spirituality at:
Canterbury Hills (in Ancaster, ON)
Saturday, 14 May 2011 from 10 am to 3 pm
Cost: $40 (includes Lunch)

Register by email to Rosemary by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Alan Cleaver 

For as long as people have drawn breath, they have sought to encounter the divine in daily life. Sacred places, once established, have been built upon time and again, even by successive religions. Stonehenge, Iona and Lindisfarne remain places of pilgrimage to this day.

The Celts especially saw evidence of the Sacred in nature, and exemplified it in their art and in their music. Druid priests were seen as those who had a special knowledge of the Divine, and were experienced as conduits between the sacred and ordinary people.

Photo Credit: A.G. Armstrong on Flickr.com

Christianity was within itself a mystical tradition where the Divine breaks through into the ordinary in terns of laces, art, and sacred objects, music, writings, and people. We can express this as "thinness", where the veil hiding the divine from us is briefly blown aside and we encounter the Godhead.

At Canterbury Hills, itself a "thin place", we will spend a day and explore our spirituality, and our relationship with God. We will find that special place where we feel in communion with the Divine all around us. We will experience in music, that "thin" quality which transports us from the ordinary into the Divine. We will discover the special people in our own lives who seem to posses spiritual qualitites, and look at how Jesus exemplefied the ultimate "thinness" in his work and ministry.

Contemplative Fire Events

Contemplative Fire Hosted a Lenten Retreat called "Awakening"

Photo Credit: Sandchem on Flickr.com

We considered how the Season of Lent can be thought of as a time for us to awaken to the Spirit within. It is a season to let go of some things, to allow us to focus on more important things. Lent is an invitation to take some time apart.

We considered how awakening is like the "popping" of a poppy.
At first the poppy is tight, compact, full of potential, but perhaps constricted, restricted and cramped.
Our lives are often like that. And we yearn for the spaciousness of an awakened spirit.

Photo Credit: Robynejayon Flickr.com

An awakened spirit is open. It is unpredictable in its form and flow. It moves. It is a surprise.

A wonderful part of the day was the sharing. We shared wine and bread. We shared a wonderful meal. And we shared about ourselves: what speaks to us, what our experience has been.

A poem which we shared speaks about both the need to dive into the deep, and fear of it. And how, fear can be transcended and reality can be changed when Spirits awaken.




A Poem by Carol Bialock:

Photo Credit: Rusty Russ on Flickr.com

I built my house by the sea.
Not on sand, mind you.
Not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.

A strong house.
By a strong sea.
And we got well-acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence
of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier;
always the sand between.

And then one day
(I still don't know how it happened),
but the sea came.
Without warning.
Without welcome, even.
Not sudden and swift, but sifting across the
sand like wine.
Less like the flow of water than the flow
of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher,
till it reached my door.

I knew, then, there was neither flight nor
death nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling you stop
being good neighbors,
Well-acquainted, friendly-from-a-distance
neighbors.
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe under water.


Quoted from "Contemplative Catholic" here.

Photo Credit - Robert Scott Photography on Flickr.com

We concluded our day with some visioning for the future of Contemplative Fire Niagara. Our Core Team will be meeting in the near future to plan Contemplative Fire Niagara Events and will keep you updated.

Lenten Day Apart Retreat

Contemplative Fire Niagara welcomes you to a Lenten Day Apart
26th March 2011 from 9:30 a.m. to 3 P.M.

Awakening

You will experience ...

Stillness and space helpful to awakening to God
Community Life as we get to know each other
Agape meal with Lenten reflections
Vision sharing and questions: What is Contemplative Fire?

Details

Saturday, 26th March 2011
Location: St. Luke's Parish Hall - 1382 Ontario St., Burlington ON
Free parking is across Elgin Street from the Church (1371 Elgin St.)
- Park in the lot and walk through the Church yard to the Parish Hall.

Suggested donation: $25 - including a hot meal - payable on the day by cash.
Please let us know dietary restrictions.

Please register online now by filling out the Orange sign up form to the right -->
Don't forget to click the grey "Register Now" button!

There is a suggested donation of $25 which includes a hot meal. Donations can be made in cash on the day of the event.

Embracing Silence

Chapel at SSJE, Cambridge Massachusetts

At some point in the contemplative journey, everyone must come face to face with silence. True contemplation happens within the spaciousness of silence. This can feel awkward to us who are used to the bustle and noise. Most people are trained to fill any spaces with something - anything to avoid silence. Do we perhaps run from the depths of our own true self?

There is a place where I go which cherishes silence, and invites anyone to experience it. It is my pilgrimage place: the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Please click on the following link to listen to and/or read the wonderful words of one of the brothers there - on becoming silence.

Brother Kevin Hachett - On Becoming Silence

Gathering - January 2011

We gathered once more on 16 January 2011 in Oakville.


God says to the Prophet - "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."


We gather, attracted firstly as seekers. A light in the darkness forms us into a circle of people. Jesus says to us "Come and See." This is our invitation. We remember the darkness in our lives, but have come to see the divine light which changes us.

From seekers circled around light, we become finders who reflect that light for new seekers, being given as a light to the nations.

We gather as light seekers

- We Find-

We disperse as light reflectors.

We will Gather and disperse again in a rhythm like breathing.

"Here is the Lamb of God"

Come and See

"I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove"

Come and See

"I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God"

Come and See

"What are you looking for"

Come and See

"Come and See"

Come and See

"We have found the Messiah"

Come and See

Our transformation takes place in community. We become companions in that circle of light when we share bread and wine together.






We gather - seeking light - we share
We disperse - carrying light - we share
We breathe in - we breathe out.
Hallelujah!


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Newest Contemplative Fire Gathering

We invite you to St. Jude's, Oakville on Sunday, January 16th at 7 P.M.
What are you looking for?
Come and See.
Map to St. Jude's
For more info call Stuart Pike 905-634-1826
or email here