We’ve gone global! By moving our morning Centering Prayer practice from our little physical chapel on our Claremont Presbyterian campus to the online Mediation Chapel, we have opened our doors to visitors from all over the country and the world, including England and Spain.
And we have created opportunities for members and friends of Claremont Presbyterian Church to meditate with others around the world, almost at any time they want to or feel called. Sam Atwood, Duane Bidwell, and I enjoy meeting new meditators and introducing our congregation to them.
Here’s what Meditation Chapel is and how it works.
Meditation Chapel is an online interfaith meditation community. Its vision is to nurture, "unity and world peace through the sharing of divine stillness and sacred listening. We support groups of all faith traditions in offering and sharing the contemplative experience through the sacramental use of technology." I don’t know whether we are getting closer to world peace and unity, but I do know that the people I have come to know are of kind and generous spirit.
In pursuit of this vision, Meditation Chapel facilitates about 150 groups from around the world. Yes, you can meditate in Spanish, French, or Dutch, whatever your preferred language.
To access these meditation possibilities, first go to the Meditation Chapel, which looks like this:
Down at the bottom of the page there is a link to a “getting started page”
On that page, you will find a link to “register.” And on that page a link to the form you will need to fill out. It’s pretty straightforward, and necessary. Meditation Chapel wants to make participation safe and keep malicious folks away.
Meditation Chapel, doesn’t sell anything, it isn’t dating site, so no meeting new friends for that purpose, and it is entirely non-partisan.
This is the form that you would fill out. Takes about two minutes. In the box about meditation tradition, type Centering Prayer.
Once you fill out the form you will receive an email with the url links to the different meditation chapels. There are four different chapel groups. There is a good bit of overlap in types and styles of meditation in each chapel, so if you are visiting or looking, don’t be constrained by the name of the chapel.
It’s a good idea to save and bookmark these links for your future use. If you are a Claremont Presbyterian member or have asked to be on the list, I try to send out an email each week with a link to the Thomas Keating Chapel, where our Friday Morning @ 8 meditation is listed, but if you save the links you will be able to access any meditation group any time.
You should also receive a link to the calendar, which is the key to accessing any of the chapels once you are registered. If you have any problems, please email me, and I will walk you through the process: charlestaylorkerchner@gmail.com.
Here is a screenshot of the calendar. And here is the url for accessing it directly. It’s a good idea to save this link.
The image above is only a screen shot picture. If you move your cursor around when you are visiting the actual Meditation Chapel web site, you will be able to see our Claremont Presbyterian, Friday Morning @ 8 shown here:
And at 10 am Pacific Time there is a silent meditation that originates in Dublin, Ireland. (The Silent@Six refects their local time.)
As we scroll down the day, we find that at 4 pm Pacific Time, Centering Prayer is offered in Spanish by Myrna Castro from Nicaragua.
Quite literally, Meditation Chapel has brought us a world of contemplative practices in many styles. I’ve visited a fistful of them, always found that I am welcome, and that a need to meditate as a particular time of day often can be accommodated.