Dearest Friends:
With my health issues and other challenges in the past year, I have come to understand better what ‘apocalypse’ really means. It’s not only the end of the world where many people fear we are heading. It is the vision of reality which is the ever-evolving Gospel. It’s how I’d like to speak now about the mission of our community to which I hope you recognise you belong. And to invite you to discern how you may help.
The Christ-vision is already irreversibly released. Even through our failures it becomes a light on the lampstand for humanity’s future. We and our institutions often fail to live it and sometimes contradict it. But the light shines to keep transforming the way humanity sees itself. Hope doesn’t depend on technology, economics or consumption but on human beings waking up across our beautiful planet with all its diversity – waking up to our true Godlikeness and oneness. This is what lies beyond the Christian apocalypse – not only in heaven but here on earth where we desperately need to see and hope in it. Our community mission is to help keep this moving forward generation by generation.
The three big apocalyptic threats we face shake this vision and show our dark inclination for violence. These threats are ecological, nuclear weapons and the biological manipulation of the human. The fundamentalist sees the apocalypse as God’s violence against humanity. But Christ has smashed this self-deception. The apocalyptic violence is man’s. Christ has placed in our hearts the vision of God which snaps all that chains us to violence.
Teaching meditation and supporting contemplative community is what the light of the Gospel means. At any stage of life, meditation can open consciousness to this light. We teach it as a universal wisdom, in the simplest way and to anyone. Not merely to de-stress from the anger stored inside us. But as a way of releasing among us the power of peace: shalom, salam, shanti, síocháin, eiréné – all words for what Jesus called ‘my own peace’.
It is our mission and service to release it, first in the heart and then in active life. Such a work can never become controlled by ‘business mentality’ and methods. And yet, for the sake of future generations, it must be managed now in good order. This past year I have stepped back from many practical tasks and, I assure you, I have realised we have financially skilled and excellent administrators to help us adapt to the challenges of the future.
Living with my health issue, I have thought much about the health of the WCCM. I can tell you it is healthy, its mission creatively served by countless teachers and volunteers around the world – locally and globally working with young and old, religious and secular.
We hold this mission in earthen vessels. Sharing it in such turbulent times makes me acutely aware we must be prepared for the future. That is why I am asking you directly to help us, by participating in the practical work as well as by financial support. And so, I am launching now, with this letter, our Annual Appeal. In this letter, I could have given you many examples of what we are doing but I wouldn’t be writing to you if I didn’t feel that you are already well aware of all we do, being, as you are, part of this community and its destiny. I wanted to focus, rather, on why and how sharing this vision is important: it changes humanity.
There are many ways to support this appeal:
⦁ By making a recurring monthly gift
⦁ By making an annual gift
⦁ By making a one-time donation.
A regular donation, of course, allows us to plan more effectively.
A regular donation, of course, allows us to plan more effectively.
You may also choose to remember WCCM in your will. Someone said to me the other day, ‘What a nice way to go, knowing that part of what you cannot take with you will remain as an ongoing legacy for this work of peace in the world!’
As I write, I am recovering from surgery, about which my doctors feel optimistic and, I, peaceful.
Whatever my personal destiny, I want to thank you for inspiring me about the destiny of the WCCM. The community, in many ways, gives me confidence that the seed of contemplation, planted by John Main almost fifty years ago, will continue and bear fruit in God’s plan as a legacy for humanity, changing our view of the apocalypse for your children and grandchildren and for the healing of our planet.
Please participate with your time and treasure as you can!
With much love,
