In 2007 the CCMC Council decided to provide support to Caribbean meditation communities. This was to be accomplished through personal visits every 2 to 3 years, with follow-up by email and phone calls. In April – May 2008, Michel Legault visited Barbados, Trinidad and Curacao. A planned visit to Haiti at the same time was postponed due unrest in the country, and Michel accompanied a tour to Haiti by US meditators in December 2009.
My visit was to Trinidad (Jan 9-16), Curacao (Jan 24-29) and Barbados (Jan 29-Feb 6).
My travel costs were covered by a grant from The Trust for the Meditation Process and my wife, Barbara, and I decided that we would pay the additional costs so that Barbara could accompany me.
There was a great deal of interest at all locations and registration forms were handed out so that everyone could be contacted about future events.
There are plans for several new groups to start (one to be led by a vibrant 92 year old woman who attended the group leaders’ workshop) and new people are already attending existing groups.
The local committee were incredibly helpful and attentive to our needs, so it was a very rewarding experience. The Anglican contacts that Barbara and I had previously made turned out to be extremely helpful in extending the reach beyond the existing meditation community which is predominantly Roman Catholic. These were also the people who made the contacts with the Anglican clergy in Barbados.
There is only one group in Curacao, so the pace was much more leisurely. There were two talks planned on consecutive evenings, each attracting about 40 participants. The response was very positive and once again there was good ecumenical participation. The Anglican priest is keen to start a group and another meditator is also planning to lead one. A resident of Bonaire (a neighbouring island), who came to Curacao for the talks, was also thinking of beginning a group.
We met with the Roman Catholic bishop, who is very interested in meditation. He is particularly interested in introducing it into the schools. The local meditation coordinators will be following up with the person responsible for education.
One of the participants would like to start a new group.
Through the Anglican contacts in Trinidad, I arranged to visit the Anglican seminary and gave a talk to 15 students. I also met with one Anglican priest who is interested in meditation.
The Resource Centre provided a good selection of tapes, CDs and books for me to take. These were extremely welcome and there was great excitement when I presented them. They will be well used by existing groups and to develop new groups.
It was very helpful to have Barbara participate in the tour as she was able to have conversations with participants, give me feedback on the talks and participate in one of the presentations.
The hosts were very gracious and generous in each country. We received a warm welcome wherever we went and were taken on sightseeing trips as time permitted. We felt very privileged to be able to stay in people’s homes and to visit with families and friends.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the Caribbean in January? For me it was warmth (especially from the perspective of a Winnipeg winter.) When I went on a speaking tour to Trinidad & Tobago, Curacao and Barbados, accompanied by my wife Barbara, we certainly experienced the physical warmth of the climate. More importantly, we received an incredibly warm welcome from our hosts. Wherever we went we were greeted with kindness and generosity and were welcomed into people’s homes and into their lives. What a privilege this was. We were able to share in, and appreciate, the daily lives of our hosts, and to meet their families and friends. They also gave us the caring gift of time. There was time to rest when we needed to, and time to see and experience the unique culture and landscape of each of the wonderful islands where they lived.
It was a rich experience for me to give talks to so many people with different backgrounds and interests, and in such a wide variety of settings. We met in churches, a cathedral, meeting rooms, worship centres, a school, a private home and a college chapel. There were members of the hosting congregation, people from other churches, and some with no church affiliation. There were high school students, Anglican clergy on their continuing education week, business executives, theological students, and a group who had suffered significant personal loss. There was tremendous interest in each location. In Trinidad the numbers of people who came to listen and learn was astonishing (over 700 in total). I was also interviewed for two local TV stations and a Diocesan newspaper. Yet whether it was a church full of people, or an auditorium filled with high school students, or a few people in the front rows of an otherwise empty cathedral, it was the response of individual people that was a delight to witness.
For many, meditation was a new and rewarding experience which they wanted to explore further. Several people said that they intended to re-commit to the twice-daily practice of meditation. There were some who talked about their plans to begin a new group, one of whom was a woman of lively faith who was 92 years old. Some said that they had previously had questions or reservations about meditation which they now felt had been answered. After each meeting there was a buzz of conversation as people stayed behind to share their experiences and build community.
For me, it was a wonderful opportunity to appreciate once more the breadth and depth of the World Community for Christian Meditation. In each country I met enthusiastic, gifted people who were committed to practicing, teaching and promoting meditation. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and I came home deeply grateful for the experience and personally renewed in my commitment to the extension of the “monastery without walls”.
Phil Barnett