• Winston Charles

    • Winston Charles, Director of Going Deeper: Clergy Spiritual Life and Leadership Program, is a graduate of Shalem's Nurturing the Call: Spiritual Guidance Program and Transforming Community: Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups & Retreats Program. As an Episcopal priest, he served congregations in South Carolina, New York City and North Carolina before retiring in 2009. He continues to offer spiritual direction, teach contemplative spirituality and lead retreats.

50th Anniversary of Shalem – 50-Hour Vigil of Prayer

How often do we have the opportunity to be connected in Holy Silence for fifty hours, joining our prayers and offering them to one another? How often are we invited into deeper presence with the Divine from which we may, with compassion and courage, faithfully live God’s dream into the world, into all of creation? […]

September 09, 2023 by Winston Charles 5 Comments

Reimagining Confession As Noticing

Confession has always been a part of the Christian tradition of spiritual deepening. As such, it has all too often been understood within a dynamic of payment due, penance to be done, conditional forgiveness, substitutionary Christology. No doubt for many, a deepening of their spiritual lives and even a re-formation of the direction of their […]

January 01, 2020 by Winston Charles 1 Comment

Setting the Stage for a Contemplative New Year

Article by Winston Charles (January 2018 eNews) One sage piece of advice given to me was, “Don’t join a fitness center in January. It will be packed with well-intentioned people who have made New Year’s resolutions to finally do something about getting fit and healthy. Wait until February when yet another gaggle of New Year’s […]

January 01, 2018 by Winston Charles 2 Comments