Principles for Contemplative Spirituality (Part Two)

Last updated on: December 11, 2018 at 12:53 am By Carl McColman

Last week I shared six principles that guide me in my understanding of what Christian contemplative spirituality is. This week I’m sharing six more. As I said last week, it’s a bit of a paradox to offer principles for a spiritual practice that is grounded in silence and invites us into silence. Speaking of silence: perhaps the ultimate irony. Nevertheless, we human beings are inveterate thinkers, talking, reflectors, philosophizers. I think it’s helpful to reflect on “what we talk about... Read more

Do You Need a Spiritual Teacher?

Last updated on: November 26, 2018 at 3:44 pm By Carl McColman

A reader of my blog wrote the following message to me: I have been meditating for about a year now. I have been working with a meditation teacher who has been helpful, but, even though we are of the same Christian faith, he leans too far into the Yogi tradition for my comfort level. My experience with Centering Prayer has been very positive and what I have read and heard about the Christian Contemplative Path resonates with me. To really... Read more

Principles for Contemplative Spirituality (Part One)

Last updated on: December 11, 2018 at 12:49 am By Carl McColman

A couple of years ago Rob Bell wrote a book with the title What We Talk About When We Talk About God. I haven’t read the book, but I love the title. So I suppose this blog post could be called “What we talk about when we talk about contemplation.” If that seems funny to you, I admit I’m being ironic. Why talk about something that takes us — or at least invites us — to a place beyond language,... Read more

Artist, Mystic, Pilgrim, Companion: An Interview with Christine Valters Paintner

Last updated on: December 5, 2018 at 5:41 pm By Carl McColman

Recently I had the opportunity to interview author and contemplative artist Christine Valters Paintner of the Abbey of the Arts. We talked about contemplative spirituality, pilgrimage, and her latest book, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within. The book celebrates the spirituality of pilgrimage by identifying eight essential practices that can inform and illuminate the journeys and adventures that mark our lives. It grew out of the author’s (and her husband’s) own pilgrimage, when they relocated... Read more

Letter and Spirit: Thoughts and Silence?

Last updated on: December 5, 2018 at 5:38 pm By Carl McColman

In his sermon On Conversion, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux quotes Acts 26:24, only he paraphrases it like this: “Too much thinking has made you mad!” Whenever I see a verse like this rendered in an unusual or thought-provoking way, I like to check out the original Greek or Hebrew, even though I’m strictly an amateur when it comes to Biblical languages. These words were spoken by Festus, who is criticizing Paul when the saint is addressing Agrippa. Festus says, in Greek, πολλα σε γραμματα εις μανιαν περιτρεπει, or... Read more

What Has Not Yet Been Revealed

Last updated on: December 5, 2018 at 5:34 pm By Carl McColman

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is I John 3:2. Here is a lectio divina meditation I recently wrote about this verse. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. I think there is a tendency to pay attention to the second half of the verse. “We shall be like God…... Read more

The Rule, the Discipline, and Spiritual Growth

Last updated on: December 5, 2018 at 5:30 pm By Carl McColman

I bet if I took a poll, almost everyone who reads my blog would agree with this statement: “I want to grow spiritually.” Readers of spiritual blogs want to grow in their faith and practice the way that readers of marketing blogs want to expand their business, or the readers of investment blogs want to make more money. It’s part of the nobility of being human: we see areas in our lives where we want improvement, and we try to... Read more

Life is a Pilgrimage — So Embrace the Journey

Last updated on: January 2, 2018 at 5:17 pm By Carl McColman

Christine Valters Painter is one of the most creative and visionary of spiritual directors with a meaningful online presence. Her website, Abbey of the Arts, functions as a sort of “cyber-cloister,” a place of quiet presence and spiritual nurture where participants are invited to encounter God not only through the words and practices of contemplative spirituality, but also — and perhaps more significantly — through creative expression. Paintner understands what Evelyn Underhill declared a century ago, that “all real artists,... Read more

Better to Light a Candle (of Silence) than to Curse the Darkness (of Language)

Last updated on: December 27, 2017 at 9:05 am By Carl McColman

Does language always limit the way we talk about, think about, or even pray to, God? This question has been on my mind for the past few days. This past weekend I attended a service at a nearby Episcopal Church. The liturgy came from Enriching Our Worship, a contemporary, inclusive language resource approved for use in Episcopal Churches. For the most part it was poetic and lovely. However, one phrase during the Eucharistic prayer startled me — and not in a... Read more

What Do Contemplatives Want?

Last updated on: November 26, 2018 at 1:41 pm By Carl McColman

First a disclaimer about my headline. I’m answering this question (What do contemplatives want?) based on the results from my 2015 readers’ poll. If you aren’t interested in the survey results, scroll to the bottom of the post to see my conclusions. All the blogging gurus suggest that professional bloggers should survey their readers once a year or so. My last poll was in late 2013. The questions in this year’s survey were partially demographic (so I could get a sense of... Read more