Contemplative Living Archives | Page 5 of 5

Article on Contemplation (bonus post)

My article on “The Practice of Contemplation as Witness and Resistance” has been published in the October 2007 issue of The Way (a journal of contemporary spirituality published by the British Jesuits). They have been behind in their production because of the editor’s illness, but the issue is now available. Click on the link above to read the article. I also just ran across one of my absolute favorites of the Peanuts comics — it was very tempting to follow Charlie Brown’s lead during those long years in graduate school and it still holds lots of appeal! I think Tune would embrace this

July 9, 2008

Radical Hospitality

This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. [S]he may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. -Rumi I am very grateful

June 17, 2008

Contemplative Living

A great reflection by Robert Toth at the Merton Insitute: “Do you consider yourself a contemplative person? Would you say that you live contemplatively?” Having asked these questions of hundreds of people, we find that most people do not see themselves as contemplative or feel they are living contemplatively. Most defined contemplative living as leading a less busy, more quiet life or engaging in certain practices such as meditation, centering prayer or yoga. In the popular imagination contemplative living is still influenced by the close connection between contemplation and monks and nuns who leave “the world” and live in monasteries.

July 29, 2007

Listening Point

If you head over to Listening Point today, you can see a photo I took in Ireland in a wonderful forest near the ruins of Cong Abbey accompanied by one of my all-time favorite poems (which I posted here about a year ago, but it seemed time to bring it out again). And while you’re over there, bookmark the site and keep going back to it. Always good stuff posted there on the contemplative life and they are also looking for more regular contributors. -Christine Valters Paintner@ Abbey of the Arts

July 12, 2007

Contemplative Living as Justice-Making

“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.”(Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Thomas Merton) I first read this quote several years ago in, of all places, a Yoga Journal article on the practice of ahimsa, or nonviolence. It blew me away because I had never before even considered that the busyness

June 13, 2006

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