Welcome to the Contemplative Underground. We're so glad you've decided to visit our online community.
The Contemplative Underground is an outgrowth of a prayer ministry that The Benedictine Way has been engaged in for several years. This ministry unites contemplatives and those seeking to explore what contemplative prayer might mean in their lives, as part of an online community.
Early in the pandemic we realized that there was a kind of “underground” of people who longed for prayer, silence, and inner peace. These people were searching for peace and hoped to do this within community. The nature of the pandemic and the great distances between us allowed us to utilize the internet for these purposes.
And so we created a community of Christians who began searching for ways to move - from dogma toward Spirit, from legalism toward liberation, from violence toward nonviolence. We do that by living a contemplative life in the hope of following Jesus. For more than four years we’ve been meeting on Saturday mornings for a Centering Prayer Sit in which there is a brief teaching and a twenty minute meditation period. Our community has grown over these years and now has members from seventeen states and occasionally from abroad.
A contemplative life is rooted in contemplative prayer, forms of Christian meditation like Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina (a type of Bible study), the Jesus Prayer, and other such forms of meditation and prayer. This approach to prayer is an attempt to access the inner flame dwelling within each of us as the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So why underground?
Our founding Spiritual Guide, Br. James Dowd, OSB, has traveled throughout the country offering workshops in centering prayer and the other forms of Christian meditation. In doing so, he met many people who hungered for a deeper connection to God and to one another. From the most rural areas to the largest cities, from suburbia to the countryside, he found people looking to join a wider movement in the way of love.
The solitude and silence of contemplative prayer moves us away from anxiety and stress and into a community of love and peace.
We invite you to join us, here in the underground. We invite you to give us a try. Join us in a Centering Prayer Sit. At this time, we offer Sits four days per week and will eventually have at least one sit every day of the week. Our community also offers video and written reflections.
If you are seeking inner peace, healing, wholeness, a deepening of your interior prayer life, then Contemplative Underground might be for you. We hope you will consider joining our community. Please take the time to explore our website for more information, and feel free to contact us with any questions.
All are welcome! Let’s bring this underground movement above ground. Peace be upon you.
About
Meet our Centering
Prayer Leaders
Brother James Dowd, OSB
Brother James Dowd has been a Benedictine monk for many years and is the founding Prior of The Benedictine Way and the founding Spiritual Guide for the Contemplative Underground. Before serving as the Monk in Residence for the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska, he served at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY and at Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery in Grahamstown, South Africa. Brother James is passionate about exploring the intersection of the quest for Christian social justice and the contemplative life. The Benedictine Way was founded so an inter-generational community of followers of Jesus might find a way to reinvigorate our little corner of the church with that quest.
In Br. James’ travels he discovered a kind of “underground” of people who either were contemplative or wanted to be contemplative throughout the United States, South Africa, Germany, Great Britian, and Canada. In all these places, people longed for a more peaceful life and desired to work for a more peaceful world. Having led many workshops on Centering Prayer and other forms of contemplative prayer, it became clear to Br. James that people wanted to live contemplatively within the context of a community – but that community was difficult to find. Thus, the Contemplative Underground was born. Contemplative Underground brings together the desire for contemplative life and the longing for community, and it is led within the framework of Benedictine spirituality.
The Rev. Rita Carson Kendagor
Mother (Mtr.) Rita Carson Kendagor was born and raised in Kansas City, KS, and has lived in several regions of the US as well as in Kenya. Rita is a graduate of Sumner High School, Wichita State University, and University of Kansas for graduate work. She is a certified Spiritual Director, having completed the Souljourner’s Spiritual Direction Training Program in 2017. In 2022, Mtr. Rita retired after working over 30 years as a clinical social worker. She attended the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry and is now ordained as an Episcopal priest. Mtr. Rita is currently assistant rector at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, MO, where she offers programs on contemplative spirituality, coordinates pastoral care, and offers Spiritual Direction.
Mtr. Rita leads contemplative retreats in the Kansas City area, and teaches Centering Prayer and other forms of meditation. Her approach to Centering Prayer follows the basic guidelines of Contemplative Outreach: “I have a sacred word which I use to help me to focus – when my mind wanders, I return “ever so gently” to my sacred word. I usually begin a group meditation sit with a short contemplative reading, and I will end a sit in the same way. I find silence a very welcoming and necessary form of prayer.”
Having been widowed in 1993, Mtr. Rita is a single parent of two young adult children, and a grandparent of two lovely cats – Binx and Miss Sadie.
The Rev. David R. Stock
Born and raised in Logan, Utah, Father (Fr.) David attended Utah State University, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology in 1988. After graduation, he became certified as an addictions counselor and worked in both inpatient and outpatient drug and alcohol treatment settings for eight years. Having been immersed in a Centering Prayer practice since the early 1990s, Fr. David began to discern a call to ordained ministry, eventually leaving for seminary at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California in 1997. After ordination, Fr. David served parishes in St. Louis and Oklahoma City, then moved to Nebraska in 2020, with his spouse, The Rev. Emily Schnabl. He is currently the Rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Lincoln and Priest-in-Charge of St. Andrew’s Church, Seward.
Fr. David has also had one foot in religious life throughout, having been a Family Brother of Assumption Abbey, a Trappist/Cistercian monastery in Ava, Missouri, and now an Oblate of Incarnation Monastery in Omaha, aka The Benedictine Way.
Twelve-Step spirituality and contemplative prayer have been recurring themes in Fr. David’s life and ministry. He has long worked to integrate the monastic practices of the Divine Office, sacred reading and silent prayer within the busy-ness of life, with varying degrees of success. These practices fit well with Step Eleven, which states “We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact God as we understood God...” Fr. David has been a regular contributor to the online Centering Prayer group on Saturday mornings. He currently serves as chair of the Recovery Commission for the Diocese of Nebraska. In his view, the Twelve Steps, as a way of healthy living, and Contemplative Prayer, as a core prayer practice, are deeply related. They both deepen an awareness of the Presence of God within and around us, lead us to know and become our true selves, and inspire us to live at peace with others and with all of creation.
INCLUSION
The Benedictine Way is a community in the Episcopal Church, so you may notice its influence in our videos. However, Christians of all denominations and backgrounds are welcome in the Contemplative Underground. Contemplative prayer is meant to deepen our relationship to God in the silence of our hearts and is not bounded by church institutions.
The Contemplative Underground is an open and affirming community of Christians. People of all sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions are welcome here. We affirm our LGBTQ+ community members as beloved by God as they are.
Contemplative prayer directs us away from violence - physical violence and the violence in our hearts. Hate speech, prejudice, and cruelty are not tolerated in the Contemplative Underground. Speaking with hatred in one of our centering prayer sits or online forums will result in being blocked from participation in our community.
