Workshops and lectures will be held throughout the week of September 24 – 30 beginning with a lecture on Forgiveness in Eugene. An introduction to Centering Prayer will follow with an all day workshop. Fr Meninger will also give a presentation in Corvallis on the Enneagram, one in Salem on his work as it relates to the Cloud of Unknowing, with small group talks and times for Centering Prayer during the first part of the week. He will revisit the Cloud of Unknowing in a Portland workshop and will introduce his newest book on Julian of Norwich and her relevance in current times during his final talk there.

TICKETS/REGISTRATION

Eugene: Online at http://meningerevents.eventbrite.com, pay at the door, or call 541-343-1631. Scholarships available.

Corvallis: Online at http://meningerevents.eventbrite.com, pay at the door, or call 541-754-9945. Scholarships available.

Salem: Online at http://meningerevents.eventbrite.com pay at the door, or call 503-917-9432. Scholarships available.

Portland: Contact Anne Feeney at 503-335-3115 or akfeeney@gmail.com.

EVERYONE IS WELCOME

About Father Meninger

In 1974, Father William Meninger, a Trappist monk and retreat master at St. Josephs Abbey in Spencer, Mass. found a dusty little book in the abbey library, The Cloud of Unknowing. As he read it he was delighted to discover that this anonymous 14th century book presented contemplative meditation as a teachable, spiritual process enabling the ordinary person to enter and receive a direct experience of union with God.

This form of meditation, recently known as 'Centering Prayer' (from a text of Thomas Merton) can be traced from and through the earliest centuries of Christianity. The Centering Prayer centers one on God.

The Cloud was written, not in Latin but in Middle English - which means that it was intended primarily for laymen rather than for priests and monks. Father Meninger saw that it was a simple book on the ultimate subject, with only 75 brief chapters.

He quickly began teaching contemplative prayer according to The Cloud of Unknowing at the Abbey Retreat House. One year later his workshop was taken up by his Abbot, Thomas Keating, and Basil Pennington, both of whom had been looking for a teachable form of Christian contemplative meditation to offset the movement of young Catholics toward Eastern meditation techniques.

Ten years later, Abbot Keating, now retired and a member of Father Meninger's community of St. Benedict's in Colorado, initiated his highly organized and effective Contemplative Outreach, Ltd. in order to facilitate a spirituality focused on Centering Prayer.

Like Abbot Keating and Father Basil, Father Meninger takes a limited time each year from his silent monastic life to travel the world and teach contemplative prayer. His book, The Loving Search For God is an effort to bring the message of The Cloud of Unknowing to men and women of the 21st Century.