Eternal Heart

Description

This is what teachings from Scripture and the mystics reveal: the heart is the temple of God within us and within the heart we hold the key to live a truly divine life. But how do we embody the tremendous love available to us, deep in our hearts?

In Eternal Heart, Carl McColman, author of The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, invites us to create an optimistic, visionary, and imaginative path to personal happiness and fulfillment. Weaving together teachings from the biblical tradition, literature of the mystics, and wisdom of the world’s contemplative traditions, McColman engages us in profound, practical exercises for cultivating fuller, more abundant, and more satisfying lives.

The path of Christian Mysticism is a path of both contemplation and action. By unlocking the mysteries in our hearts, we discover a source of divine love deep within us: a power for spiritual growth, and for creating meaningful relationships and working together to change the world for the better.

Also available as a 4-CD audiobook.

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Other ways to order your copy of Eternal Heart:

 

Amazon.com • Barnes & Noble • Books-a-Million • Bookshop.org
Christianbook.com • Verbum/Logos/Faithlife
Indiebound.org • Broadleaf Books (publisher’s website)

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Praise for Eternal Heart:

Eternal Heart is a generous invitation to enter into the heart of the mystery. Carl McColman offers a lens of love through which to gaze upon eternal gifts hidden in the very center of all that is. Such sacred seeing transforms what it beholds.

—​ Mirabai Starr
author of God of Love and Wild Mercy

There is likely in each of us a mystic within, waiting for us to open a door in the heart to release that hidden part of ourselves most in touch with the divine, and to embrace it and nurture it. Eternal Heart shows us how to unlock that door so that we can seek what is eternal and sacred in all things — our conversations, walks, and all we see, taste and hear. It is a book whose “heart practices” we will feel drawn to repeatedly over the different seasons of our lives.”

— Judith Valente
author of How To Be: What The Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us
About Happiness, Meaning and Community
and Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home and a Living Faith

Carl McColman offers us another gift of contemplative insight and illumination. Eternal Heart invites the reader into various themes of the mystical life, deepening each one with wisdom from mystics of various traditions to help reveal the way to oneness as one of unity rather than division. He encourages us all to embrace this mystical gift and vision in our lives, one our world is so hungry for, and charts the way through accessible practices. Reading it I felt my heart kindled by both joy and possibility.

—​ Christine Valters Paintner
abbess of www.AbbeyoftheArts.com
author of  Sacred Time: Embracing
an Intentional Way of Life

Eternal Heart is a beautiful offering that not only informs us about what contemplation is but also gives us a felt sense of its quiet aliveness and joy. Reading it feels like listening to a gentle call. One that calls us back to our hearts — that place deep within—where we feel held and loved by God and where God is a living reality. Rich in teachings from the classical mystical tradition, this book is not only meant to be read but also prayed.

—​ the Rev. ​Adam Bucko
director of The Center for Spiritual Imagination
co-author of Occupy Spirituality and The New Monasticism

There is no better time than now to delve into the subject of the heart. Carl McColman takes us into a metaphysical and seamless journey to gather a kind of joy so immense we cannot grasp it. He expands the mind with questions of what might be beyond infinity, beyond eternal. He leads us further into our hearts as sleuths in the mystery of life. What joy! Eternal Heart is a wonderful offering.

— Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
ordained Zen Buddhist priest and author of several books
including The Deepest Peace: Contemplations From a Season of Stillness.

Eternal Heart is a sustained rhapsody on every aspect of the spiritual life, woven in a language full of insight, rich in reference, speaking directly to the love-hungry heart.

— Brother Paul Quenon ocso
poet, Cistercian monk, and author of
Unquiet Vigil and In Praise of the Useless Life

With kindness and courage, Carl McColman invites his readers to travel with him on a journey, well-paved by ancient mystics and contemporary sages. McColman himself is a wise guide, offering both personal stories and spiritual practices to lead us into an awakened heart, one that is conscious of its own restless limitations and ready to discover that the loving presence of God was there all along. This book is a treasure for the heart.

— Christiana N. Peterson
author of Awakened by Death and Mystics and Misfits

In Eternal Heart, Carl McColman illuminates the pathway of the heart with wisdom, ease, and a touch of joy. Through the aperture of mysticism, he draws from an expansive range of faith and prayer traditions, inviting us into eternal possibility. Eternal Heart shines a light on the teachings, practices, and ways of seeing that can bring us closer to divine presence.

— Colette Lafia
author of The Divine Heart: Seven Ways to Live in God’s Love
and Seeking Surrender

Mysticism and contemplation can feel abstract and challenging even to those of us who are most curious about them, but Carl McColman’s Eternal Heart grounds these ancient practices in concepts familiar to everyone. Interweaving storytelling, scripture, and interfaith tools for contemplation, this book helps our hearts find a path toward the things they most long for.

— Kaya Oakes
author of Radical Reinvention
and Slanted and Enchanted

“Eternal Heart companions us tenderly through our restlessness and longing on a journey of presence and relationship with God. A seasoned spiritual author and guide, Carl McColman invites us to a place we already are, but haven’t quite found. In these pages, we re-encounter love, discernment, faith, silence, imagination, courage, renewal, and other gifts of the heart that engender sustaining hope and joy. You will be blessed by this book!”

— Lisa Colón DeLay
host of the Spark My Muse podcast and
author of The Wild Land Within

Many of us feel comfortable using labels like, “teacher,” “healer,” “artist,” or “activist” to describe ourselves. Yet how many of us would feel comfortable using the term “mystic” when describing our spiritual lives? In response, Carl McColman makes a compelling case for why more of us should claim and embrace the mystical path. Not only does McColman explore how we can do this, he provides the encouragement and wisdom we need to get started – or to go deeper – on this journey.

— Kate H. Rademacher
author of Reclaiming Rest

Carl McColman writes about mysticism with a clarity of vision that spans a breadth of traditions. I have assigned his Big Book of Christian Mysticism in my classes on Christian Spirituality and my students report back to me that they have loved it, and found it an accessible and welcome bridge from our everyday world to the esoteric worlds of saints, monastics, and Church doctors. Now with Eternal Heart, McColman has brought his readers on an even more intimate journey. Each chapter goes deep into the works of luminaries like Julian of Norwich and Thomas Merton, but ultimately this is a story about McColman’s own pilgrimage of growth and healing. Weaving the wisdom traditions of more than two millennia alongside a personal narrative of yearning, love, and loss, McColman has delivered a capstone book that will be a welcome resource to those on all points of the contemplative path.

— David Dault
Executive Producer and Host, Things Not Seen and
Assistant Professor of Christian Spirituality
at Loyola University Chicago

Eternal Heart is a work of humanly sung companionship… as timely as it is transcendent. The author reminds us that becoming more truly human is not only the first step toward the mystical vocation; it is the primary practical assignment of life on earth and the first step toward a fruitful and contemporary holiness.

— Therese Schroeder-Sheker
musician and author of  Transitus:
A Blessed Death in the Modern World

In his newest book, Carl McColman invites readers to journey into the depths of the heart and find the spiritual gifts that await each of us there. While drawing primarily from the Christian tradition, he includes other religions, too, and shows how their wisdom teachings exist in dialogue to guide us along the heart’s path. McColman himself is a gentle and wise guide to the inner life. With beauty and simplicity, he opens the gifts of the heart, encouraging us to receive the blessings that sometimes lie hidden until we’re able to see them anew. I recommend Eternal Heart for all who seek to experience life’s blessings in a more loving and intimate way.

— Lisa Deam
author of 3000 Miles to Jesus

“For years, I have loved using a set of prayer beads that I made myself, moving my fingers along the strand to center my heart. Moving through the chapters of Eternal Heart is like praying with a string of smooth beads.  Each one invites a sacred pause, and, together, they are a work of prayerful beauty.”

— The Rev. Dr. Stuart Higginbotham
Episcopal priest and author of The Heart of a Calling

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