Submitted by Kathleen Owens (she/her), Manager of Clergy Programming and Communications for the Center for Clergy Renewal at Holy Wisdom Monastery
Michael Anderson stumbled across the Center for Clergy Renewal (CCR) while on a personal retreat at Holy Wisdom Monastery. His interest in CCR led to joining the fourth cohort of Contemplative Renewal Immersions. In the Immersion he found “people who were speaking the same language.” Reflecting on his first immersion in the summer of 2023, Michael says, “What I experienced was no less than the presence of the risen Christ standing among us, breathing peace. It couldn’t be anything else because that presence surely wasn’t the result of any group posturing or effort – its source was assuredly, ‘not us.’”
Michael sees the difference in what is offered through Contemplative Renewal Immersions from other continuing education or pastoral renewal programs. As he puts it, “As appropriate and useful as those other things are, they are not helping you deal with what is going on in you at a faith level and a soul level.” The Immersions allowed space to share with other clergy openly and with vulnerability, creating a cohort that was unguarded. “The thing that just continued to bowl me over throughout the week was how so much love and ministry could be shared among people. Everybody was so grateful for the for the opportunity to be seen.”
Following the Immersions, Michael began to ask himself, “What do you do when you’ve had what feels like a Gospel of John moment where you’ve been individually, and as a group, locked away in a place of fear? What do you do when you’ve been in that place and you’ve had the risen Christ come among you and say, you know, it’s cool, right? Now I’ve had that experience and I can’t forget it. And the way this contemplative thing works is that what you receive in the experience ultimately makes its way out of you in love towards the world.”
Michael is staying close to this gift of unguarded love through the contemplative practices he learned in the immersions and the community that he gained in his cohort. In his ministry he is particularly aware that “there’s been an untangling. My sense of belonging to God is now totally separate than my experience of being a pastor which somehow frees me to be more of a pastor and more a lover of God.” He is also living in more unguarded ways as this love makes its way out of him. “I am dialed into taking time to check on colleagues. I’m deeply aware of how unsupported people feel.”
Michael’s experience of the Contemplative Immersion program also led him back to Holy Wisdom Monastery to become an Oblate. His interest in being an Oblate grew in part from a need to go deeper and understand the thing that incubated the CCR. “If CCR is the container that’s holding all these discerning, tender hearts, there’s also a container that’s holding CCR. Going down the path to becoming an Oblate for me is about needing to spend
more time getting my heart educated and kindles new appreciation for and deepening in the tradition that formed me.”
Michael is at the beginning of a new journey in his life educating his heart and supporting others, especially his colleagues in ministry, along the way. Thank you for your support as part of the container that holds the Center for Clergy Renewal so that pastors like Michael can find spaces to be unguarded and open to Christ’s presence and peace in their lives.