Compassion Practice+ is a project of BELOVED Way to promote the continued practice and regular teaching of the Compassion Practice, a spiritual discipline offering healing for individuals, families, communities and the world.
BELOVED Way’s Compassion Practice+ programming is open to anyone and everyone. But participants ages 50 and older have been the most dedicated to investing their time and energy into “Practicing the Practice.” It is our intention to lean into the lessons of our own lived experience by inviting maturing adults into this “spirituality for the second half of life.”
BELOVED Way facilitates two weekly Compassion Practice+ small groups where participants can “practice the practice.” Anyone and everyone is welcome to drop in, whether it’s your first time or thousandth time! Practice groups meet online on Tuesdays 7:00-8:15 PM PT and Wednesdays 1:00-1:30 PM PT. Learn more.
Our 25-hour, 3-Level “Cultivating Compassion” curriculum takes participants deep into the scripture, theology, and research undergirding the Compassion Practice. The Cultivating Compassion curriculum also offers a path to becoming a Certified Facilitator of the Compassion Practice. Learn more.
Developed by Dr. Frank Rogers, Jr., of Claremont School of Theology, the Compassion Practice is a four-step spiritual discipline that cultivates ones’ capacity for compassion and compassionate action towards oneself and towards others. There are 10 contemplative practices that facilitate the Compassion Practice.
BELOVED Way has testimony upon testimony that the Compassion Practice has been healing and “revolutionary” for people of all ages. Yet for so many maturing adults, there is a a special readiness to engage in the work of “making compassion a way of life.”
In his landmark book, Falling Upward, Fr. Richard Rohr (OFM) offers a reason why. Rohr argues that we spend much of the “first half of life” (ages 1-49) creating a social identity expressed in things like education, job, life partner, family, friends, and living situation. Then, in the “second half of life” (ages 50+), we question what we learned in the first half of life and seek a deeper spiritual groundedness. Rohr suggests that maturing adults are literally “living into” a wisdom formed by deep or repeated experiences of pain and loss over time. In a society that encourages people to stay in a first-half-of-life spirituality forever, Rohr calls upon the church to be a counter-cultural voice encouraging maturing adults towards a deeper spirituality. BELOVED Way’s “Compassion Practice+” is our answer to that call.
