Contemplify

"Phileena writes here with such simple clarity—and easy readability—because she knows she does not need to prove, convict, or defend anything. Mindful Silence contains not just her wisdom but the spiritual wisdom of the ages that is again standing the test of time and showing itself in the fruits of incarnational holiness. It is the great tradition of action and contemplation again showing itself." -Richard Rohr, OFM Eleven years ago I was a work intern at the Center for Action and Contemplation. A season of life that would unknowingly tether me to the contemplative journey. As a work intern, I lived in community with 6 other interns. If that weren’t enough, we were also the guest house for retreatants. One evening as we were settling into our dinner, there was a knock on our door. I hustled over to welcome our unknown guest, who happened to be Phileena Heuertz. Over the course of the meal we would come to learn about Phileena’s work with folks living in poverty and on the margins. She had just completed

Theodore Richards latest work’s A Letter to My Daughters: Remembering the Lost Dimension and the Texture of Life. Theodore Richards is a philosopher, poet and novelist. He has won numerous awards for his writing, most recently winning the Nautilus Book Award for his book The Great Re-imagining: Spirituality in an Age of Apocalypse. As the founder of The Chicago Wisdom Project, editor of the online magazine Re-imagining: Education, Culture, World, and a board member of Homebound Publications, his work is dedicated to re-imagining education and creating new narratives about our place in the world. You can learn more about Theodore Richards at theodorerichards.com, on Facebook, and Twitter.

I love the kinship one can feel with a poet, author, or musician. The right song or poem can track you down and settle into the liturgy of your life. I count myself lucky to have had that experience too many times to count. I try to keep my ears open enough so artistic expressions can tunnel their way from my ears down to my heart and gut. It was a lovely New Mexican Fall day when one of my favorite poets suggested I listen to the song ‘Sand Hills’. I tracked song the down, put my headphones on, and followed the trails of the melody into the mysterious interior landscape mirrored by lyrical vapors traversing the natural landscape. That was my first taste of Luke Redfield. Luke Redfield is an American folk singer who hails from my home state of Minnesota and now calls Austin, Texas home. He has crossed the country in true troubadour fashion, honing his craft along the way. As his website perfectly states it, Luke integrates elements of classic folk, indie rock, and alt-country, his soulful songwriting explores

"In Distant Neighbors, both Berry and Snyder come across as honest and open-hearted explorers. There is an overall sense that they possess a deep and questing wisdom, hard earned through land work, travel, writing, and spiritual exploration. There is no rushing, no hectoring, and no grand gestures between these two, just an ever-deepening inquiry into what makes a good life and how to live it, even in the depths of the machine age." - Orion Magazine Chad Wriglesworth is a professor (at St. Jerome’s University), literary critic, book editor and writer. What most strikes me about Chad is his love of words. You will hear in our conversation how he lights up on the poetic turn of phrase, or a word that is precise enough to communicate exactly what is intended. Chad compiled and edited the letters for Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder. This book is riveting and I begged it not to end. The tone, tenor and rhythm of the letters are the manifestations from the lives of Wende

“Tessa said something that completely change my path and my life. She said that 'falling in love with life was the first step on the a mystical path.'" - Adam Bucko I first met Tessa Bielecki as I was exiting a port-a-potty. Let me explain. A few years back, I was at an arts and spirituality festival. As I departed a port-a-potty, I made a crack about it being a cramped prayer cell (or some such nonsense) to the woman next in line, and she let out an infectious belly laugh while held the grimy door open. Looking back, this was the right way to meet Tessa. See Tessa Bielecki is a contemplative on the roads of the world. She is familiar with the ditches, the biways and the old desert roads that take you to the end of what you know. And she’s gracious enough to share her wisdom of these roads with us today. Tessa Bielecki has written a number of books, I recommend them all, and most heartily Holy Daring: The Earthy Mysticism of St. Teresa, the Wild Woman of Avila. Tessa dipped into a contemplative way of bei

Famed contemplative hermit Thomas Merton wrote in his journal in the mid 1960s, ‘Should a hermit like Bob Dylan? He means at least as much to me as some of the new liturgy, perhaps in some ways more. I want to know the guy. I want him to come here, and I want him to see one of my poems.’(p. 107) And after hearing Dylan’s album Blonde on Blonde, Merton pronounced, “One does not get ‘curious’ about Dylan. You are either all in it or all out of it. I am in his new stuff.” (p.2) Robert Hudson has written a book that seems tailor made to my interests, it’s call The Monk’s Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966. This book is for every Merton fanatic, Dylanphile, and those whose ears perk up at the calling of the artist as a contemplative vocation. A master wordsmith, a recognized Bob Dylan scholar and a member of the International Thomas Merton Society --  Robert Hudson is the perfect person to have written this book. In our conversations we’ll unpack Bob Dylan’s meteoric impact on

The first time I hung out with songwriter extraordinaire Del Barber was back in 2005 when he drove me from Calgary, Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba. I fell asleep almost immediately after he turned the ignition, waking hours later confused and unsure which Canadian prairies we were in the middle of. Del told me I snored. I apologized. He said he didn’t mind. The only other conversation I remember from that drive was about the sacredness of wine in various religious traditions. This would be the first of many long stretches on the highway together. This was back in the days when I believed ol Robert Keen that ‘the road goes on forever and the party never ends’. In 2015 when I heard one of my favorite songwriters, Del Barber, was going to be playing the fabled SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas--I knew I had to be there. So, I called up my pal Del Barber to see if he would have any time to bounce around Austin between shows if I made the drive from Albuquerque. He said he would, and even secured me a free pass

“This bold recovery of a long-forgotten path to prayer, expertly situated in its historical context and made accessible for modern-day believers, makes for absolutely fascinating reading--for the devout and doubtful alike." - James Martin, SJ, author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage Imagine a wheel, a wheel with nesting concentric circles within it. Each circle holding the sacred text and ancient contemplative practice of a devoted community of monks. This sounds a lot like something pulled from Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but actually I am describing a book, and contemplative practice, called The Prayer Wheel: A Daily Guide to Renewing Your Faith with a Rediscovered Spiritual Practice. My guest today is David Van Biema. David and I explore a lot of terrain in this conversation. First we dive into the origins of why David became a religious writer (a story that reminded me of the film ‘O, Brother Where Art Thou?’, his discovery of the Prayer Wheel at an art gallery in New York, and how the Prayer Wheel can b

‘What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe.’ These 3 sentences come from my self-adopted contemplative grandfather, Thomas Merton.They ring so true for me that they were the basis for my thesis paper in graduate school. Why? Well, for me, they represent an embodied response to one of my essential life questions -  how does contemplation intersect with day-to-day life? So there is this contemplative rhythm in some monasteries of the Christian tradition called the Divine Office...or the Liturgy of the Hours. Today’s episode is going to be the first of a series I’ll be doing on the reimagining of the Divine Office into my own personal reflective interpretations as a contemplative in the world. The intention is to mark each of the Hours but in a form very different from their regular practice behind monastery walls. In other words, this is what a contemplative rhythm looks like in my particular life.

“Quoting the ancient I Ching, [Gail] writes about “coming to rest in motion.” She should know: a world traveler and social activist, Gail brings the steady calm she finds in the mountains to her work at peacemaking in a troubled world. ” - Elizabeth Lesser cofounder Omega Institute   I feel like an absurd lover torn between two beloveds. But rather than being drawn to different people, I’m torn between landscapes. My primary loves are the lakes and trees of Minnesota, but I have also deeply fallen for the desert mountains and mesas of New Mexico. And still if I drift into memories, I recall other landscapes that pierced my heart. When it comes to landscapes, Gail Straub is my people. Gail Straub is the author of The Ashokan Way: Landscape's Path into Consciousness. In the book and in our conversation Gail shares her wisdom on the dance of landscape and consciousness, her friendship with poet-philosopher (and one of my personal heroes) John O’Donohue, the role the Ashokan reservoir has played in her socia

I have only purchased one app for my phone. I find cell phones to be a necessary nuisance, helpful enough that I keep one, annoying enough that I keep it on silent. I don’t bemoan or resent anyone who has finally found love with their device. I get it. I just find it terribly distracting to the notes of life that I want to pay attention to. Then a friend forwarded me an article on a mobile app called WeCroak. I immediately realized I had been introduced to the perfect app. The gist is this, after handing over a buck to WeCroak, you download the app and then five times a day you receive the following notification: Don’t forget, you’re going to die. Five times a day. The only other feature beyond this mortal reminder is that when you tap on the reminder, a quote appears from a poet, philosopher, author, etc, such as: ‘Let me respectfully remind you: Life and Death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. On this night, the days of our life are decreased by one. Each of us shou

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu (スティーヴン・マーフィ重松) is a subtle and winsome teacher. I had the privilege of being in the student seat last fall at a conference where he was teaching. The first words I remember him speaking were in reference to the Japanese word ‘ma’, which he translated as the space that is the space between things. Inviting each attendee to take on the practice of listening by feeling and holding the spoken words before responding. I remember letting out a big sigh of relief (and of celebration) and recognizing that he was not a typical presenter seeking to bombard listeners, but to create space. It takes a subtle artist to create space within another person, Murphy-Shigematsu is such a person. He expands the meaning of mindfulness into the embodiment of heartfulness, and structures his latest book, From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: Transforming Self and Society with Compassion in such a way to ground the reader in the basic elements of heartfulness and ways to cultivate heartfulness from which compas

Frank Ostaseski knows death. Not in a metaphorical or figurative way, but through concrete presence. Frank has held hands, laughed with, cried with and learned from those who were welcomed in the doors of the Zen Hospice Project during their final days on the planet. As you will soon find out, he honors them through magnanimous storytelling and wisdom from the depths of experience. Frank is a sought-after Buddhist teacher who co-founded the Zen Hospice Project in 1987 and founder of the Metta Institute in 2005 to train countless healthcare clinicians and caregivers and building a national network of educators, advocates and guides for those facing life-threatening illness. If that weren’t enough, he’s been highlighted by Oprah Winfrey, Bill Moyers and H.H. the Dalai Lama. And Frank was gracious enough to share his teachings and presence with us on Contemplify. Using his life-altering book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, as a launchpad we delve into Frank’s story,

Michael Perry is a roughneck contemplative. A term that I am hoping he will half smirk at in self-recognition from his deer stand. We got together to talk about his latest book, Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy, a book that mind you, made me deeply reflect on my own life and laugh out loud while reading in crowded public spaces. A combination that doesn’t happen as often as I would like. So I wondered, what would a conversation with Michael Perry be like? Perry falls into the category of conversation partner that I admire, one who can belay between foolish laughter to gut-punch vulnerability in the span of a couple minutes. As a music lover, for me to hear the connection between Mike Perry, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Justin Vernon and Phil Cook made me giddy. To learn that Justin Vernon and Phil Cook  were once a part of Perry’s band was more than my ears could take. And this is just the tip of the conversation. Mike and I delve into how a kidney stone got him interested in the ph

You know that old story of a successful criminal defense lawyer who quits practicing law to start a bean to bar chocolate factory? Yeah...it’s a new story for me too. But that is the story of Shawn Askinosie. Shawn is a remarkable human being. Not because Oprah Magazine named him “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World” or because Forbes named his small batch, award winning chocolate factory, Askinosie Chocolate ‘One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America’ (both of which are true by the way). It’s because Shawn holds a contemplative vision for his life and business to create a more just and loving world. Askinosie Chocolate is a direct trade business that profit shares with their partners, the cocoa farmers, from around the world. Shawn and his team are recasting how a profitable business can operate in the world with integrity, passion and humility. In this conversation you will get a taste for Shawn’s values as he shares about his experience as a Family Brother at Assumption Abbey, how he recognizes the

“The Sunday Letters are always a thoughtful and welcome stop during my week. You get a moment to pause, to consider and to reflect … and Jana often leaves you with a question to keep you thinking long after you’ve finished reading. I love these letters and find myself forwarding them regularly to friends and family.” - Reader, The Sunday Letters Have you ever wanted to be a writer? Maybe the type of writer with an acute eye for detail that maintains a deep connection with your readers. This is how I would describe the curator and writer of The Sunday Letters, Jana Marie. The Sunday Letters is a weekly newsletter on contemplative thinking. I don’t know about you, but Sundays continue to hold the air of naps, spiritual questions, and Swedish pancakes.This is how Jana describes Sundays - ‘In their characteristically gentle way, Sundays present us with what is so often a much-needed opportunity for stillness. A time to reconnect and re-center, they allow us the space to check in with both ourselves and others.’

Thich Nhat Hahn is a world renowned Zen Master, author of more than a 100 books and in my opinion, a winsome meditative stroller. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. Then in 1982, Thich Nhat Hahn founded a community called Plum Village in the south of France. In 2008, a young man was ordained a monk at Plum Village. The young man’s brother is a filmmaker, Max Pugh, who was in attendance reflected upon this experience of bearing witness to his brother’s ordination as a Buddhist monk. Later, Max Pugh would Direct and Produce the film Walk With Me: A Journey Into Mindfulness Featuring Thich Nhat Hahn. Max has crafted a remarkably meditative film about the Plum Village that his brother joined. In our conversation, Max shares how he was asked to make a rock and roll road documentary about Plum Village without the sex and drugs, how the ringing of chimes can break the unconscious noise, and what Thich Nhat Hahn taught him about being a parent. You can learn more about Max at ma

Ali Kirkpatrick is a writer, speaker, retreat leader, part-time university instructor and business owner. But if i was going to name her post in the world it would be as an ambassador of love. Ali is taking over reins as host for Contemplify for 5 episodes in this miniseries called, Practice Without Preaching: Creating a Family Spirituality. The central beauty of this mini-series is that it holds the potential for you to reflect, question, celebrate and imagine how your family explores the spiritual terrain. Like all authentic explorations you might be challenged by what you discover...rest assured that Ali is a trustworthy guide and fellow traveler. This is episode 5 of Practice Without Preaching: Creating a Family Spirituality.

Ali Kirkpatrick is a writer, speaker, retreat leader, part-time university instructor and business owner. But if i was going to name her post in the world it would be as an ambassador of love. Ali is taking over reins as host for Contemplify for 5 episodes in this miniseries called, Practice Without Preaching: Creating a Family Spirituality. The central beauty of this mini-series is that it holds the potential for you to reflect, question, celebrate and imagine how your family explores the spiritual terrain. Like all authentic explorations you might be challenged by what you discover...rest assured that Ali is a trustworthy guide and fellow traveler. This is episode 4 of Practice Without Preaching: Creating a Family Spirituality.

Ali Kirkpatrick is a writer, speaker, retreat leader, part-time university instructor and business owner. But if i was going to name her post in the world it would be as an ambassador of love. Ali is taking over reins as host for Contemplify for 5 episodes in this miniseries called, Practice Without Preaching: Creating a Family Spirituality. The central beauty of this mini-series is that it holds the potential for you to reflect, question, celebrate and imagine how your family explores the spiritual terrain. Like all authentic explorations you might be challenged by what you discover...rest assured that Ali is a trustworthy guide and fellow traveler. This is episode 3 of Practice Without Preaching: Creating a Family Spirituality.