MJ Huthmacher
Over the years, I have facilitated workshops and retreats on contemplative prayer and meditation, including the exploration of the inner dimensions of the human journey. It is the birthright of every human being to awaken to our true nature, which is Love, Peace and Joy. This awakening happens spontaneously and is not bound by religion or culture.
My own spiritual practice has evolved over the years and includes elements from both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. I have a degree in Philosophy and a background in interfaith study and exchange. For instance, while living as a Christian monk I was involved in an exchange program with a community of Tibetan monks in North India. In fostering dialogue between the world’s religious traditions I have always sought to show the universality of our common human journey.
The great masters of the world’s religions all pointed to the underlying reality of the oneness of all things and how we can come to experience that reality. In our time traditional religious language and symbols are losing their significance for many people. So now the experience seeks a new language which is just starting to be articulated.
I have had a long-standing interest in cosmology and how the new understanding of our origins affects contemporary spirituality. From quantum physics we have the insight that there is nothing separate from anything else, which is what the great masters have been trying to get us to experience for thousands of years. This insight, not as an intellectual concept, but as a lived spiritual reality, opens up for us new vistas including seeing each human being as not separate from my self and also opens up for us the spiritual dimensions of the ecological movement, for instance.
I am a hospice volunteer and serve as a member of the Coordinating Team of Salt Spring Hospice. Nothing over the last several years has helped me to deepen my own spiritual practice more than being with the dying. I have received so much, more than I could possibly give.
More recently, I have sought to raise awareness of domestic and international human rights issues. This has been a bit of a stretch for me and the first time that I have engaged in political speech since my university days. In this I have been inspired by Gandhi who taught that any nonviolent political act undertaken to help free and liberate oppressed peoples is, in itself, a spiritual act.
Well, that’s all for now.
Peace and Blessings