Ed Bacon, Episcopal priest and author of 8 Habits of Love: Overcome Fear and Transform Your Life, unconsciously began a life-long contemplative journey when he first read Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation. Ed was in Vanderbilt Law School at the time.
Merton’s call to pray for your own discovery — the contemplative discovery of one’s true self — led Ed to leave Law School. He then was ordained in his hometown Southern Baptist Church but his true self led him later into the priesthood serving three churches as rector or dean: Dalton, Ga., Jackson, Mississippi; and Pasadena, California.  He retired in 2016 after 21 years of priesthood in California. Throughout those rectorates, annual Ignatian 8-day retreats kept Ed oriented on the contemplative journey.

In retirement his vocation has been reoriented to serving as interim rector in Atlanta, Chattanooga, and now at All Saints’, Birmingham. His contemplative ministries focus on teaching the unitive and non-dual theologies of Centering Prayer and leading weekly sits (now, Tuesdays at 5:30 pm at All Saints’). He also leads a weekly zoom class on Contemplative Transformation.

Grounded in Thomas Keating, Howard Thurman, Cynthia Bourgeault, and Richard Rohr’s integration of contemplation and loving action, Ed is also attracted to Teilhard de Chardin and Ilia Delio’s integration of science and mystical theology. Fr Thomas Keating became deeply interested in science during his last 30 years, notably how Centering Prayer actually changes neuronal structures. Ed teaches and preaches love over fear, oneness over separateness, and praying to let go of our ego system to let come Love’s Ecosystem. As he follows the star of contemplation the more easily he listens to and sees The Spirit’s movement in other person’s lives.

His presentation will describe how contemplation and the energy in community transform us into new beings with a new consciousness.