Programs 2020
Our December meeting via Zoom was a discussion by SOS participants on “Advent in the Time of Corona, Reading, Reflections and Prayers during the Pandemic.”
At our November meeting, Father Terry Ryan, CSP, continued discussing Thomas Berry’s writing on spirituality and ecology. He discussed uestions such as:
● How does the contemplative life connect and impact the need to care for our planet? This goes back to the ancient issue of prayer without works. Prayer with works speaks of the need for common ground and a communal aspect of life of which the Pope has focused in recent weeks.
● How can prayer interact with physics, biology and chemistry?
If you would like to contribute to Father Terry’s important ministry, you may do so through his Venmo account, Terry-Ryan-25, or by check to him at Father Terry Ryan, CSP, St. Benedict’s Monastery, 1012 Monastery Road, Snowmass, CO 81654.
Father Terry began his discussion on Thomas Berry at our October 3 Zoom meeting. Thomas Berry, CP, Ph.D. (Nov. 9, 1914 – June 1, 2009) was a cultural historian and scholar of the world’s religions, especially Asian traditions. Later as he studied Earth history and evolution.
September 5, 2020, Zoom meeting
Paulist Father Terry Ryan, the inspiration for the founding of Seekers of Silence, presented a follow-up to his successful Zoom presentation August 1 on the spiritual journey of Ruth Burrows, the pen name of Sister Rachel Gregory, OCD, a Carmelite nun in the monastery in Quidenham, England.
Ruth Burrows is the author of more than a dozen books on prayer and the mystical life. Describing the central theme of her work, she has written: “God offers himself in total love to each one of us. Our part is to open our hearts to receive the gift.”
Father Terry, former pastor of St. John XXIII University Parish in Knoxville, now resides in Colorado.
We moved our annual SOS Bookshare meeting from June to May and held it online via Zoom. Seventeen people logged on to participate. The meeting, set up and moderated by David Waite, went amazingly well with each person who wished to present a book, website or other work taking about five minutes to report with some discussion after each presentation. Click here for a full list of the books, along with notes and comments on them. One of the books reported on was the novel by two of our own SOS participants, Dorothy Wilt and Theresa Nardi. Several people have asked how to buy the book, “Almost Holy People.” It is available at Healthyselftn.com.
SOS participant Jim Ullrich, offered as his contribution the following Prayer for a Pandemic by Cameron Bellm. Given the times, it seems appropriate to repeat it here:
May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must choose between preserving their health or making their rent.
May we who have the flexibility to ca re for our children when their schools close
Remember those who have no options.May we who have to cancel our trips
Remember those that have no safe place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market
Remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for a quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country,
let us choose love.
During this time when we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other,
Let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbors. Amen.
(Obtained from:
www.ccvichapel.org/post/prayer-for-a-pandemic-cameron-bellm
of the Chapel of the Incarnate Word, Incarnate Word Sisters, San Antonio, Texas)
April 4 meeting
Our regular April 4 meeting also was canceled because of the pandemic, but presenter John Prados arranged a program so that people could access the video he planned to show and follow along with a schedule of silent prayers. The Contemplative Outreach video, That We May Be One: Christian Non-Duality, which can be viewed on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9BnQZ6xLHE&t=2s, continues and builds on the works of the late Father Thomas Keating over the past 30 plus years. In July 2016 Father Thomas and a few friends at St. Bendict’s Monstery in Snowmass, Colorado, held in an intimate and wide-ranging conversation on the timely subject of non-duality from a Christian perspective.
Topics include: The Western and Scriptural Models of Spirituality; The Invitation of the Christian Contemplative Tradition Beyond Rational Consciousness; The Self and Evolving Consciousness; Christian Non-Duality and Unity Consciousness; The Present Moment and All That Is; Fallen, Beloved and Surrendered.
Although Seekers of Silence is not affiliated with Contemplative Outreach we annually present a program based on talks by Father Keating to celebrate United In Prayer Day. More information on this event can be found on Contemplative Outreach’s website.
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Father Terry Ryan, CSP, whose conferences on contemplative prayer and meditation while pastor of St. John XXIII Catholic Center and Parish at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville led to the founding of SOS, gave a presentation on What the Reformation Forgot: Contemplative Prayer, a look at the failure of the Reformation to include contemplative prayer while it focused on doctrines that only increased division.
A native of New York, Father Terry was ordained to the priesthood in 1977. Before that he earned an MBA at Columbia University in New York City and worked in the corporate world in Chicago and San Francisco. Since becoming a priest Father Terry has been teaching about meditation and the mystics with a focus on ecumenical and inter-faith relationships and understanding, including Eastern and Western traditions.
He currently travels around the country giving conferences, retreats, missions and other spirituality program. He divides his time between Boulder, Colo., and San Francisco, spending summers at the Trappist St. Benedict’s monastery in Snowmass, Colo. Father Terry has been a frequent presenter for Seekers of Silence. Father was pastor at St. John XXIII in Knoxville for eight years (1995-2003).
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Dr. William J. “Bill” Toth spoke on Integral Spirituality: A Harmonizing Perspective at our February meeting.
Bill lives in Oak Ridge and works at the National Laboratory, where he supports programs to secure and account for nuclear and radiological material worldwide. He has been a long time member of St. John XXIII Catholic Parish on the UT campus in Knoxville, participating in music ministry and has within the last two years returned to his home parish of St. Mary’s in Oak Ridge where he continues to contribute to music. Bill married Cathy Paulus in 1986 and after five years living in Arlington, Texas, they returned to East Tennessee to raise their three children: Paul, Allison, and AJ, now grown, out of the house and gainfully employed! Bill has been associated with the Seekers of Silence for many years, attending irregularly; mostly when he offers talks on various subjects. His academic training started in Engineering and extended through a Ph.D. in Organizational Systems where his research involved studying personal and organizational shadow to determine why catastrophes happen. A longtime student of comparative religions, Bill and Cathy continue to host a meditation group at their home, as they have done for the past 12 years.
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Our annual Christmas sing-along program was in January and featured he Marco Madrigal Singers, a group of musicians, some singing together for more than 30 years, who sing for pleasure and perform several times a year for groups interested in medieval and renaissance music. Many in the group have been attached to the University of Tennessee’s Medieval and Renaissance Program and its name comes from the acronym used by those fields of study: Medieval and Renaissance Community Outreach — MARCO. The group is led by Paul Barrette, retired professor of French at UT.
The second half of the program was our regular sing-along of Christmas carols, led by Edgar Miller with B.J. Chandler on the piano and Marcel Holman on the soprano saxophone.