N.B. I wrote this post for my new Substack publication,  Mystical Journey. But since the message is timely, I’m cross-posting it here.

Despite its significant flaws, Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain is a modern classic of contemplative and mystical literature. But did you know that when it was published in England, it was given a new title ( Read more... )

Friends, I hope you’ll join me on Substack where I’m creating a new series of brief inspirational writings called Mystical Journey. Subscribers receive up to 3-4 emails from me each week, each one designed to support you in your ongoing contemplative practice.

The idea behind Mystical Journey is very simple: mystical spirituality thrives with ( Read more... )

I’ve started a Substack! If you’re not familiar with Substack, it’s like a blog that you read through email. My Substack is called “Mystical Journey” and will include a variety of posts, all designed to help you go deeper and further on your unique mystical passage. The Substack has both free and paid options, but you do need to subscribe to ( Read more... )

Here’s a fascinating quotation from Laura Anderson’s important and insightful book, When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion:
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the largest group of people who are leaving evangelicalism are not those who were mildly involved or nominal believers. Instead, the ( Read more... )

Carl McColman leads us to the brink of lessons no book can teach, then frees us to go forward to learn them, trusting the God who meets us at every step of the unknown way. - Barbara Brown Taylor
If you don’t know about Carl McColman, you should. - Brian D. McLaren
Carl McColman gives you much wise direction and broad understanding of contemplative ( Read more... )

In 2020, I posted to this blog an “Examen of the Senses” which I co-wrote with my wife Fran. We wrote it for use in our Catholic adult faith formation course, so the language in it was explicitly Christian. While we still love that original version, we’ve had occasion to use this Examen in more ecumenical and interfaith settings - most recently for ( Read more... )

I’m so honored to be one of the presenters of the Spiritual Wanderlust 2024 Contemplative Summit! I’m joining other contemplative writers and teaches like Carmen Acevedo Butcher, James Finley, Kaira Jewel Lingo, James Martin, Christine Valters Paintner, and many others, for four days of conversation and exploration of various topics related to ( Read more... )

I’m writing this blog post the morning after returning home from a lovely weekend where I was the guest presenter at Minnesota Contemplative Outreach’s fall retreat. We spent our time together reflecting on my book Eternal Heart: the Mystical Path to a Joyful Life.

So many retreats that I lead are structured around the writings of one of the great ( Read more... )

In recent years, I’ve talked to a number of people who describe their spiritual journey as going through a period of “deconstruction.” These “deconstructors” are usually younger folks, in their 20s and 30s. But I believe people of any age, and any spiritual identity, might embark on this particular spiritual path.

If you’re not familiar with the ( Read more... )

I posted this on Facebook not long ago…

A couple of people posted comments to the effect of “Please say more about how prayer changes things.”

That’s a great question and so here are a few thoughts in response.

First, I don’t believe prayer is magic. I once heard Episcopal priest and writer John Westerhoff define magic like this: “Magic is ( Read more... )