“If our thoughts are kind, peaceful and quiet, turned only towards the good, then we influence ourselves and radiate peace all around us – in our family, the whole country, everywhere. We create harmony: divine harmony, peace and quiet spread everywhere.” Elder Thaddeus
We are faced with so much that makes peace seem almost impossible to imagine.
Conflict is increasing across the world. There is a great sense of distance between ourselves and the ‘other’. Our planet is on the brink of irreversible ecological disaster. We are more stressed, distracted and fearful than ever.
These global crises are also global symptoms – symptoms of our alienation from our true nature, from the silent land of Peace within us, from our common home in God.
As a direct, practical response to circumstances that call for greater peace, each of us can commit to the quiet, steady, work of establishing greater peace in ourselves. This is perhaps the most important thing we can do. Everyone around us will benefit.
But how can we do this?
In this experiential gathering, we’ll explore meditation in the Christian tradition as a simple pathway to peace, community and oneness.
The retreat will be held in the beautiful Bedouin Tent at St. Ethelburga’s – a warm, welcoming oasis in the City of London.
Through a flow of short talks, meditation practice and conversation we’ll look at how:
- our noisy, distracted minds create the illusion we are separate from God, each other and the world
- meditation can help us overcome this illusion and cultivate a more compassionate life, rooted in awareness of the oneness of being
- as we are restored to ourselves, we are restored to each other
- each of us can be places of peace in the world.
Ultimately, meditation is not about technique, but about relationship. We come to see that we are not separate from each other or any part of creation, but one in God’s Oneness.
The realisation of oneness is the deepest foundation of peace within us and the foundation of peace between us. It is the deepest basis for compassion and justice, for our care of each other and of our precious world. “When it is truly seen,” wrote Julian of Norwich, “no person can separate themselves from another.”
The retreat will be relevant and accessible to anyone searching for truth and peace, regardless of their faith, beliefs or previous experience of meditation.