From time to time readers of this blog ask me to recommend a book or two on the subjects I write about — contemplative prayer, the Christian mystics, Lay Cistercian spirituality,…
Category: Books
Keeping Spirituality Grounded
One of the pitfalls of contemplative practice is that we can easily get stuck in our heads. Combing through the Bible or other books for lectio divina, investing time to daily…
Mirabai Starr: Giving Julian of Norwich a Lucid Voice
Julian of Norwich’s Showings shines with luminous mystical wisdom. If there is one mystic I wish everyone would read, it is Julian. But of course, the question is, “which edition…
The Kenosis of Clutter
True confession time: I’m a clutter bug. I always have been, with books, CDs, and other forms of media being my worst offenses when it comes to acquiring stuff that…
A List of Books for Buddhist-Christian Dialogue
Are you interested in exploring the richness of dialogue and interspiritual practice between Christianity and Buddhism? If so, then here’s enough literature to keep you going for a while. Each…
Journey to the Heart: Christian Contemplation Through the Centuries
This beautifully illustrated and informative title from Orbis Books in the USA (Canterbury Press in the UK) provides a very nice overview of the history of contemplative spirituality within Christianity….
The Nondual Writers of Footnote #45
A reader of this blog writes to me: Hi Carl. I was reading Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now and in one of the footnotes he lists a number of “non-dualistic” writers he…
Tessa Bielecki’s Recommended Reading for Growing in Intimacy with Christ
In her CD teaching series Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics, former-Carmelite-turned-desert hermit Tessa Bielecki offers a wealth of suggestions of books one can read to deepen…
The Rule of Saint Benedict
It might be easy for anyone who doesn’t live in (or aspire to live in) a monastery or some other form of intentional religious community to simply dismiss the Rule…
A Conversation with the Compost Queen
Trina Paulus, author of the best-selling Hope for the Flowers, talks about environmental activism, the spirituality of waiting, and two very special butterflies named Yellow and Stripe. September 1997 marks…
111 Mystics
The following list of books represent those writings by 111 Pagan, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim mystics dating from the beginning of the common era to the present day. Please buy…
My Original Mystical Booklist
Note from Carl: I began this list in 2007, and added to it here and there over the years. Eventually it seemed large and unwieldy, and so I created shorter,…