So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. (Luke 19:4) When I was a boy I loved to…
Category: Spirituality
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…
A Kiss from Mom and a Lesson About Suffering
Early this morning (August 15, 2009) I had a dream in which I was standing outside a building, like an officer’s club on a small military base. It felt like…
Perfectly Perfect
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This saying of Jesus, from the heart of his Sermon on the Mount, might possibly be the single most misunderstood verse…
Everything you always wanted to know about Christian mysticism (but were afraid to ask)
Hey you! Yes, that’s right… you, the person reading these words right now. I need your help. Don’t go away — please read this post and take a moment to…
Lectio Divina
Some Christians will tell you that the heart of Christian spirituality is reading the Bible. Others will say that the key to mystical intimacy with God is not filling your…
My Loveliest Dream
It must have been sometime in the early 1980s. I was either still working on my Master’s or had just recently graduated, and my spiritual life was nurtured mostly by…
February 5, 1977
Here is an excerpt from my book The Aspiring Mystic: Practical Steps for Spiritual Seekers (2000), which unfortunately is out of print, although used copies are fairly easy to find….
Answers to Contemplation’s Objectors
I continue to be amazed at how some Christians reject, if not outright attack, contemplative and centering prayer. As best I can tell, the anti-contemplation arguments can be distilled down…