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From the President
Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler
When God calls the
only answer is YES!
Centering Prayer is a prayer of consent, and our intention is
to consent to God’s presence and action. This consent shows up
in everyday life as a manifestation of our willingness to be in this
relationship with God, ourselves and others.
Looking back over the past 25 years of serving Contemplative
Outreach, it is very hard to believe that it’s been over two
decades since my first consent to serve God through the work
of Contemplative Outreach. If I were to summarize my whole
experience, it would be like this: ‘ever deepening levels of consent.’
First consent …
Since 1984 I’ve served on the Board of Trustees of Contemplative
Outreach and attended meetings in various locations, the first at the
Merton Center on 114th Street in New York City. Ed Bednar served
as our first executive director and we held monthly meetings, most
of which Fr. Thomas would travel from Snowmass to attend. Mary
Mrozowski, one of the original Lama retreatants and founding members
of Contemplative Outreach, succeeded Ed. By the end of 1985, she
was called to serve as one of the founding members of Chrysalis House,
our first Contemplative Outreach live-in community experiment, which
required a move to West Cornwall, CT. This left an opening for an
executive director, which became a priority agenda item for our next
monthly meeting.
Our approach to decision-making was discernment and consensus.
First, we would spend time in Centering Prayer. Then we would
begin sharing and listening, discovering through our conversation
who might be the next executive director. After exploring several
possibilities, Mary turned and looked at me and said, “It is you.”
CONTEMPLATIVE OUTREACH NEWS
DECEMBER 2009
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