Dear Group Leaders and Friends in Christian Meditation,
Living in the United States, July is our independence month. This year on July 4th, we celebrated 250 years of independence. We are known as Americans, although there are many nations in the Americas. There is something beautiful in identifying with what happened 250 years ago when we gained our independence; yet there is also something challenging in the beginning of our nation knowing it began with violence. Violence is always missing the mark of who we are to be as God’s children.
One American Buddhist teacher speaks of July 4th as our interdependence day. I like this a lot. It reminds me that we are all connected in our nation, but also in our community of nations–as well as being connected to all of creation through our God. This is why as God’s children we are all called to be compassionate just as our Heavenly Father is compassionate. (Luke 6:36 Common English Bible). Compassion isn’t pity. Compassion is a reminder of who we are with each other. As one Hindu spiritual teacher put it, there is no other. In a Christian understanding we are one with each other and one with our God who is One. Thomas Merton wrote: “The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.” We are made for loving God and our neighbor. Yet we have become lost in our obsession with independence and neglected our human call to interdependence.
I can think of how interdependence is lived out in our practice of Christian meditation. Our meditation flows from our being a part of the Christian family. This is irregardless of our identification of our denomination or the name we use to describe our faith in Jesus. Or where we attend church on Sunday or even if we don’t worship communally regularly. Following Jesus calls us out of ourselves into something larger.
We are reminded of this when we meditate in small groups whether in person or virtually. I recognize the bond that I experience with those whom I meditate with on a regular basis: whether it is an oblate group, my Monday evening meditation partners, those of us who gather the first Monday of the month to pray night prayer (Compline) and meditate together, or with my friend Paul who meditates with me on Wednesday evenings. I am certain that many of us have those experiences whether we are in the same physical room or a virtual space. Father John Main taught prophetically that meditation creates community. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa described it this way in the Forward to The Green Bible: “We’re made for community, we’re made for togetherness, we’re made for friendship. We’re made to live in a delicate network of interdependence, for we are made for complementarity. I have gifts that you don’t have. And you have gifts that I don’t have.” We need each other, but what we see on our news, in social media and in our political rhetoric doesn’t reflect who we have been fashioned to be in community by our God who is Relationship itself.
Our lives as Christian meditators are to be one, like all people of faith, engaged with our religious practice yet called into the world changed. As Christians we are to live as Christ in the world. Enfleshing the compassion of our God. Bishop Mariann Budde, the first female Episcopal Bishop of Washington D.C. will be participating in this year’s John Main Seminar at American University in Washington D.C., September 17-20. Bishop Budde recently said, “I want to be among the coalition of the faithful. I want to be among those working for the change we need now.” This is a goal for many of us–finding a way through our national, and international divisions, to a place of compassion, to the Moment of Christ.
I would encourage those who have not considered attending The John Main Seminar’26 “Healing the Breach”, to think about attending in person or to attend virtually. This is a pivotal time for us as Americans as we celebrate our nation’s birth and grow in our understanding of how to be engaged in our nation and our world on the brink of disaster. As prayerful people, we each have a role to play as we hope to heal the breach with compassion. This could be a time to see where our gifts are needed.
I also ask those whose meditation groups meet at local churches and other places to share this seminar information with pastors and other local leaders to spread the word more widely about this important opportunity. The information can be found online here: https://wccm.org/john-main-seminar-2026/
Happy Interdependence!
May our tender God continue to guide each of us in the way of compassion.
Warmly,
Kevin Maksym
