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Free course in meditation offered to everyone

I’ve just been given a wonderful gift. Actually, the same gift is being offered to you, too.

To The Editor:

I’ve just been given a wonderful gift.

Actually, the same gift is being offered to you, too. The Cawston/Keremeos Ecumenical Parish (Saint John’s Anglican and Cawston United Congregations) has invited me to teach an eight-week course in meditation, that we’ve titled “Meditation for Everyone”.  They want it to be a free, “no strings attached” gift from them to anyone who would like it. Really. No preaching, no judging, no membership sales-pitch. A free gift, pure and clear.

But what exactly is meditation?  Some think of it as a form of prayer. In those terms I would describe it as “prayer beyond words”. Some understand it in broader, less religious terms, like “opening your mind to the big picture”.  Though a bit fuzzy, I like that.  It sounds refreshing, and liberating, and “wonderful” – as in “full of wonder.” Those are three good words. Medical and mental health fields often speak of it in therapeutic terms, kind of like “meditation medication.”  It’s “good for what ails you,” like stress, anxiety, and high blood pressure.  I find it to be all of those things, and more. Meditation is as old as the hills - the Judean hills where Jesus taught and meditated and the mountains of Tibet. It is also as new as quantum physics, from Einstein to the present.  Actually it “exists”, or is experienced, only “in the present moment”.  It can’t get any newer than that!  I’ve been practicing and teaching meditation for over thirty years.  I teach a form of it that can be easily learned, incorporated into a variety of belief systems, and practiced by persons of any religious tradition or none. It is “ecumenical” in the broadest sense of the word.  Maybe that’s why they’ve signed me up to do this.  You can sign up too, by calling them at 499-5451. Just leave a message saying “Register me for the meditation course”, with your name and your email address or phone number.  The course is on Tuesdays, May 1 through June 19, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., at St. John’s Church, 605 Fifth Street in Keremeos. You’re also invited to a bonus pre-course, day-long prayer workshop on Saturday April 28, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m..  Prayer may sound like old stuff, but expect its content to be beyond your expectations!  And it’s also free.

I’d love for you to join me at either or both of these events.  And thanks, Ecumenical Parish, for the gifts.

Ron Shonk, Keremeos

 

(Ron serves as the Coordinator of PVPP, the Lower Similkameen’s Proactive Violence Prevention Project.  He is also an ordained minister of the Lutheran Church.)