I believe that anyone who is serious about embracing the Christian contemplative path needs some form of sustainable daily prayer. For most of Christian history, this has meant using a breviary — a prayer book which contains prayer “services” or offices for praying throughout the day. Such collections of prayers are known as The…… Read more at Patheos
N.B. I wrote the first draft of this post about a year ago, at a time when several militant atheist commentators were active on my blog’s comment section. Eventually I banned the ones who were trollish, some of them moved on, and many of those original comments got deleted. I…… Read more at Patheos
Today is the feast of the presentation. It’s also traditionally known as Candlemas; it was a time when candles would be blessed —a candle, after all, emits light, and Jesus is the light of the world. If Christmas were a forty-day season instead of just a 12-day season, today would…… Read more at Patheos
A friend on Facebook named Stephanie posed this question to me: Hello Carl, I am wondering if you’ve ever written anything on the subject of tithing in the church, and what that looks like in regards to a contemplative practice? I am a member of an Anglican church and participate…… Read more at Patheos
One of this blog’s patrons named Aaron asked, in response to my post Nonduality in the Bible and Us: Not sure if you’ve posted one before, but is there a resource that collects verses for the mystical and non dual in the Bible? Did you have a post that…… Read more at Patheos
“There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.” — Saint Benedict A common misunderstanding of Trappist monks and nuns is the erroneous belief that they make a “vow of silence.” In fact, no such vow has ever been part of Christian monastic life,…… Read more at Patheos
Back in 2003, I spent a day at a relatively new monastery near Sligo, Ireland. Like many small religious foundations just getting off the ground, it was struggling, although the members of the community were filled with optimism and a sense of purpose about their shared mission. I plied one…… Read more at Patheos
How does language help us — or hinder us — as we try to express our understanding of God — probably the most inexpressible subject imaginable? We adults can really get lost in our God-talk (the word “theology”? All it means is “God-talk”). I love to talk to children about…… Read more at Patheos
I grew up in the suburbs, and gardening was not something my family devoted much time to. So when I got into elementary school and we had a class project of planting something — I think it was a bean or some other vegetable — I became fascinated with the…… Read more at Patheos
For years, I have thought that one of the best ways to understand Christian spirituality is by the study of shamanistic forms of spirituality and religion, typically found among indigenous cultures the world over. Wikipedia defines shamanism as “reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with…… Read more at Patheos
If the 1959 plane crash which claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens marked “the day the music died” — as Don McLean put it — then I think we could make a case for November 12, 2018 being the day the stories died. For…… Read more at Patheos
On Facebook recently I engaged in a dialogue with a reader named Aaron who commented on my post Letting Go of (Our Limited Image of) God. This reader describes “druidry” as “his main private practice,” although he remains connected with progressive Christianity as well. Our conversation explores the idea that sometimes,…… Read more at Patheos