Podcast: Sleeping At Last Podcast
Hosts: Ryan O’Neal
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New song debut: “One” – the first of nine songs inspired by the nine Enneagram types! “One” is part of the ongoing Atlas series of songs by Sleeping At Last. In this episode, you’ll hear how the song came about, what the Enneagram is, what an Enneagram Type “One” is and so much more! Guest: Chris Heuertz.
Podcast: Live True
Hosts: Caron & David Loveless
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In this podcast Episode, David Loveless interviews Chris Heuertz concerning his book: The Sacred Enneagram- Finding your unique path to spiritual growth. Chris is the author of multiple books, a speaker, Enneagram coach, non-profit consultant, and anti-human trafficking activist.
Have you ever asked yourself the quintessential human question of identity- “Who am I?” Most of us spend a lifetime trying to figure out who we are and how we relate to others and God.
Unfortunately, in the process of forming an identity, we succumb to building up lies and illusions around our sense of self that only leads us further away from who God really made us to be and who we truly are.
Podcast: Typology
Host: Ian Morgan Cron
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“The number of self-proclaimed “Enneagram experts” appears to be on the rise these days so I was thrilled when I learned my friend and master Enneagram teacher, Chris Heuertz, was writing a book on using the Enneagram as a tool for personal and spiritual transformation.
Chris is the real deal. He was first introduced to the Enneagram fifteen years ago in the slums of Cambodia, and it forever changed his life. Since then he has dedicated countless hours to studying what he calls this “sacred map of the soul,” and shared it with people at workshops and retreats around the world.
You’re going to walk away from this episode with more new insights into the Enneagram than you can shake a stick at. Listen in as Chris, my guest co-host Rabbi Evan Moffic, and I talk about understanding the ‘why’ behind your type, how to identify and find freedom from self-destructive patterns, how to grow in spiritual discernment, how to face your past wounds and find healing, how to awaken your gifts to serve today’s broken world, and about Chris’ new book The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth.
I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s a feast of Enneagram wisdom!” -Ian Cron
Podcast: The Relevant Podcast
Host: NA
Podcast Recording
In this episode, the hosts talk with Hillsong Young and Free about the inspiration behind their latest album, Youth Revival Acoustic and their brand-new single “Love Won’t Let Me Down.” Author Chris Heuertz also joins this episode to discuss his book The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth.
Podcast: Good/ True/ & Beautiful with Ashton Gustafson
Hosts: Asthon Gustafson
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Christopher L. Heuertz was first introduced to the Enneagram in the slums of Cambodia. Since then he has trained under some of the great living Enneagram masters including Father Richard Rohr, Russ Hudson, Marion Gilbert, and Helen Palmer, and now teaches the Enneagram in workshops and retreats around the world. Chris is an International Enneagram Association Accredited Professional. He and his wife Phileena live in Omaha with their puppy Basil, and you can join him on Facebook and Twitter in his intentions to love on the margins.
Podcast: BadChristian Podcast
Hosts: Matt, Toby, and Joey
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We talk to Chris Heuertz, best-selling author of “The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth” partially just to find out if this enneagram stuff is legit or not. We discuss whether it was created by humans as a tool for understanding, or is innate to a deeper spiritual truth of how we’re created. Matt shares some BC Music news, and Joey witnesses the potential animalistic tendencies of humans when he waited in line for sandbags in preparing for the approaching hurricane.
Podcast: Voices Podcast
Hosts: Gary Hale & Kyle McKee
iTunes
Episode 12 with Chris Heuertz is all about his newest book, “Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth.” Chris is the co-founder of Gravity, a Center for Contemplation and Action. He speaks all over the world, leads retreats and was named one of Outreach Magazine’s “30 Emerging Influencers Reshaping Leadership.” Chris talks with us about the enneagram, self-reflection and doing deep inner work in our lives. While there are many books on the enneagram, Chris takes you beyond caricatures to how our enneagram type aligns with prayer postures which lead to spiritual growth.
Podcast: RePlacing Church
Host: Ben Katt
iTunes
In this episode of RePlacing Church, Chris joins Ben to discuss:
by Debbie Stevenson
In spring 2018 I was on a personal silent retreat. It was one of the last steps before graduating from a 3 year spiritual direction program. During those 3 days of silence, I discovered a desire for expression. I first began to notice this desire during my spiritual direction training and it also arose in sessions with my spiritual director. When I allowed myself to be silent and sit in centering prayer, I noticed a natural creativity flowing within me. I never knew I had any creative abilities. Others have that gift, not me. Or so I thought.
It was after one of those periods of silent listening that this poem came forth. As I live and move as a contemplative in the world, stillness shows me that there is something waiting to be expressed. This poem articulates my experience of discovering, exploring, and expressing a new life as I move through the transformation process. A transformation from closed to opened. Everyday I am more open to all that God has for me as I take flight into wherever that path leads me.
I have been Cocooned for most of my life,
Dark
Contained
Narrow space
Something is happening in
This space.
Wings form
A light shines
I push to the light
Like an infant pushing
from the womb.
Its wide open here
Spacious
Bright
I feel wings that as I move
are infused with energy,
Ready for flight.
I look back
that cocoon now a tomb
were I to stay any longer.
I look forward
Lift to fly in the direction
Of the one who has called me forth
To this wide world of adventure and love.
I was born again, and again, and again…
Debbie Stevenson serves as a School Nurse for a private christian school. She is a recent graduate of Audire The Central Florida Foundation for Spiritual Direction, and a member of Spiritual Directors International. Debbie also serves on the board of Fresh Oil Ministries. Debbie’s many roles include wife, mother, and grandmother. She enjoys sharing contemplative practices with others. Debbie resides in Merritt island, Florida with her husband of 37 years.
by Kevin Eicher
Many years ago I was deeply involved in what I will call “the church of my youth”. One day a friend asked me a question about my beliefs. That question lead me to other questions and I soon found myself, as I put it then: “lying on the valley floor” beat up and bloody without a single belief I could really hold on to. Over a period of time I developed new beliefs which lead to new questions and new valley experiences until eventually I came to a single unshakable belief: There is a god, and a single question: What’s he like? I have a real heart for the many people I meet that have asked the “questions-that-must-never-be-asked” and found themselves alone and hurting by what they found. I want them to know it’s all part of the journey, and it’s okay. This poem is about the journey of transformation. Transformation…it is painful …it is confusing …it is necessary, I hope it never ends.
I was born into an understanding, of the world around me,
and my place within it.
I tried, very hard, to fill that place, in that world.
One day while enjoying the view from the pinnacle of my understanding,
I caught a glimpse of a distant peak, and the earth moved,
and I fell, crashing, to a new understanding, with a new place within it.
I was born again.
One day while enjoying the view from the pinnacle of my new understanding,
I heard music, and as I listened , my heart broke,
and I fell, crashing, to a new understanding, with a new place within it.
I was born again.
One day while enjoying the view from the pinnacle of my new understanding,
I heard a voice, and my mind doubted the voice, and darkness overcame me,
and I fell, crashing, to a new understanding, with a new place within it.
I was born again.
One day while enjoying the view from the pinnacle of my new understanding,
I felt the waves of the ocean break upon my soul,
and I was swept away, to a new understanding, with a new place within it.
I was born again.
One day while enjoying the view from the pinnacle of my new understanding,
I leaped, heart, mind and soul, into the view, and the music, and the Word, and the water,
and I was carried away, to a new understanding, with a new place within it.
I was born again, and again, and again…
Kevin Eicher is a spiritual pilgrim, a thinker, and a creative. He and his wife have used their careers in long distance trucking as an impetus to a simple life and a gateway to relationships and adventures in areas they would otherwise never have encountered.When they are not running the roads or exploring the world, they live in Council Bluffs Iowa with their children and grandchildren.
by Allison Cloud
One summer day last year, while repeatedly surrendering to the unraveling of mid-life, I found myself caretaker of two caterpillars, one monarch and one black swallowtail. As they munched and grew on my screened porch, I was able to watch them molt to their pupa state, the chrysalis. Did you know that a caterpillar must break itself open to become the chrysalis? So they can become less themselves and more themselves at the same time? It was incredible to see. This liminal space, this in-between became a powerful image to me as I waited and watched throughout the day, meditating and praying with the chrysalis in front of me, but also in my heart, spirit and mind. I researched what happens to a caterpillar while in the pupa state. I found scientists who have been able to record the sounds from within a chrysalis. It is heartbreaking to hear. Nearly two weeks later, I watched the monarch emerge (I missed the swallowtail, sadly). The slow and painful process of exiting the chrysalis had me mesmerized.Finally, after the wings had dried, stretched and strengthened, the monarch butterfly took short flights for another hour, then was gone forever. For my birthday that fall, my husband planted a butterfly garden in our backyard so that I can continue raising them. Currently, there are hundreds of caterpillar eggs covering the milkweed plants. I can’t wait to see it all unfold again.
break me open
wrap darkness around
descend to
despairing
depths
til I
dissolve.
do you hear?
anguished moans
unbearable cries
desperate pleas to
cease
save
still
my suffering.
for I am being
undone
unmade
as I
unlearn
unknown
inside my tomb-womb.
where on the outside all is
jade-green
glittered gold
my tragic beauty
where darkness must become
as light to me
where I must embrace the torment
I consent!
I surrender
to this, my chrysalis.
Allison Cloud is a creative and contemplative from Kansas City, who enjoys roles as teacher, leader, wife, mother, gardener, lifelong learner and community theater actress. She serves as Assistant Director of a large KC-area homeschool academy in order to provide them with enrichment and social experiences. When not pursuing these endeavors, Allison raises her four sons, plus butterflies on her porch. She is beginning spiritual formation and spiritual direction certification through Souljourners and the Benedictine Sisters at Mt. St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas this fall. Connect with her on Instagram @alcloud.
by Eric Leroy Wilson
Holy Monday is fast approaching. I am faced with a time of reflection about Jesus turning over tables and benches as He cleanses the Court of the Gentiles. While several moments in Jesus’ life are not included in all four gospels this moment certainly is. John places this event early in the earthly ministry of Jesus while Matthew, Mark and Luke tie this event to the Pharisees justification for his unjust arrest, imprisonment, torture and eventual execution. This rhythm is still very much in play today. As we suffer from our current psychosis of nationalism we look for clear cut justification for heavy handed policing, quick convictions, and the expansion of the prison industrial complex. But Jesus turns over tables.Jesus turns over tables and benches in our lives to jar us into seeing our world in vastly different ways. Circumstances present themselves on a monthly, weekly, and even daily basis to invite us to disenthrall ourselves of our surety, romance with certainty, and our clinging to status quo. These table turning moments, chance encounters, acts of beauty and of banality, awe inspiring connections with creation, can serve to usher us toward an embrace of Christ counsiousness. In the following poem I attempt to capture this moment of table turning. The attempt is to explore the moment in the temple frozen in time and space where Jesus takes radical action to shake the world out of it’s lust for isolationism and avarice. May it serve to speed us towards a day where there is space made for all.
The gasped word “wait“ hangs full bodied in thick air.
Tables fly and the jangle of shekels, silver coined clashing ring like the sound you’d image the song sun beans make.
Tables and benches in slowed rotation in space before gravity gets it way.
Wait…. Hold on…
Muscles of a Rabbi exhale as wood gives way to force,
Hands that would soon hold nails find release as objects once supine now fly.
The gasp of a moneychanger far too familiar with his own greed,
The flutter of birds questioning why are they now freed,
The strain of a vein on the furrowed visage of a gluttonous High Priest,
The subtle pop of boiling blood from the heated hearts of Pharisees hardened for far too long,
Wait… hold on… My hand half raised.
As the guttural rumble of oxen grow to the beginning of their baying,
As the sheep build up pressure behind pallets for their bleating,
As Peter reaches for the prophet for restraining,
As the corner of my eye clinches to protect for projectiles and stray pinions,
Far away in some far corner of creation a host of six winged angels fall back defensive.
As God and the Holy Spirit shout acclamation,
Empire is critiqued, with no need for explanation.
What was alluded to as implicit now made full physical and explicit.
Sweat from a Saviors brow now dripping.
Wait… wait… hold on, I stutter with one hand raised.
The crack of leather cuts the fleshy back of open temple atmosphere.
A gall force wind whips with a backhand slash.
I’m pushed forward by the blast.
If only to stand, adjusting tendon, sinew and calf.
Heart being pushed from its lodging by a battle cry I never knew I knew.
A yell held silent for thousands of years I find myself now screaming:
Wait!
Wait!
Wait!
His rage so well placed;
Not on merchant,
Buyer,
Banker,
Or priest.
But on this nationalism so ensnaring there is no place for the other to be.
An anger made beautiful by its sublimity.
Wait!
Hold on Jesus!
You would do all of this for me?
To make space for the likes of us to pray?
And find our way,
In the presence of loving
Trinity.
Eric Wilson serves as the Associate Chaplain at Pepperdine University in Malibu California. Wilson is a certified Spiritual Director, Executive Coach and is a religion blogger for the HuffPost. He is an award winning playwright and theatrical director. His work has been published and performed around the country including the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Eric’s work attempts to leverage contemplative practice, the arts, and soul care for the purpose of fostering social justice in the world. Wilson’s book, Faith the First Seven Lessons was released Fall of 2016.
by Matthew Wright
Running through the history of our planet is a current of spiritual awakening. Beginning as a trickle, it flows through the cracks of history, touching at first individuals, now washing out, over and through interconnected circles, building in force, moving to gather up all things in its embrace.
The current flowed in the first great Axial Age, awakening us to a new depth. Abraham and Sarah left tribe and tribal gods to seek after the One. The Indian rishis retired to their caves in search of the Self. The Buddha left wife and child in the palace and set off on his quest for enlightenment. Ties with family, tribe, and Earth were broken and a new possibility emerged.
We climbed ladders of ascent and journeyed into subtle realms of Spirit. We touched the Transcendent. And often we imagined that we had discovered the purpose of our existence: escape from this world, a flight to the Beyond. We struggled to break the cycle of suffering and rebirth and to attain to the heavenly prize.
All the while the water continued to quietly flow, its force increased through the door that was opened. Not at all what we had imagined—an escape route—this channel instead allowed the qualities of Spirit to flow more fully into this world, guiding the evolution of our planet toward its fullness as an ever-deepening revelation of the Divine Heart.
This is the story I imagine as I ponder the subtle shift being felt around our planet today. For the longest swath of our history, we’ve imagined the spiritual journey as an individual quest for salvation or enlightenment, with the ultimate goal of escape, or liberation, from the world of matter. Whether we’ve seen the problem as samsara and suffering or falleness and sin, something is wrong with this place—and we want out! Images of separation and exile have long dominated our spiritual consciousness.
But slowly over the past century, and now with increasing speed, a sense of oneness is emerging in the consciousness of our planetary body. We are realizing instead that we belong. Multiple strands of knowledge point us to this truth: from environmentalists, recognizing that we are part of a global ecosystem; to quantum physicists, uncovering the deep interconnection at the most subtle levels of matter; to evolutionary biologists, revealing life’s unfolding as a vast, single process. Slowly we are beginning to discover that there is ultimately no separation within the field of existence—only one seamless dance. We belong deeply to this world, interwoven fully into its fabric.
This realization is forming the headwaters of a Second Axial Age[1], another great shift in consciousness equal in weight to that which gave rise (roughly between 800 and 200 BCE[2]) to the impulse that eventually manifested as our existing great religious structures. With that first great turn of the wheel, we opened to the beauty of the individual and the possibility of the Transcendent, and a new human journey began. But in the process we lost much of an earlier, collective sense of belonging rooted in tribe, and a deep, felt sense of connection to Earth.
In this next great turn in the spiral dance, we are picking up what was lost—no longer at the tribal, but at the global level. We are entering a period of deep integration, weaving together the primal, collective, and cosmic with the rational, individual, and transcendent—binding together Heaven and Earth. The Divine Heart is moving towards the fullness of its expression in form. With this new turn of the wheel, we release our sense of exile and settle in for the work at hand. Our Second Axial awareness begins from a new starting place: union. We have never been separate: not from one another, not from the Earth that holds us, not from the Infinite we long for.
Instead, we discover that our longing is itself the longing of the Divine Heart, struggling to come to birth in the world of form; it is the very current of awakening that drives the planet toward its fullness. We have misunderstood this longing as a defect—a symptom of our exile. It is instead the deepest sign of our belonging to the work of this world. It is the driveshaft of the entire evolutionary process as we move towards our awakening as a single planetary body.
We have not been left unprepared for this work. While the Second Axial impulse is only now gaining global traction, it has been subtly shaping the spiritual currents of our planet for the last two thousand years. We see it forcefully in the rise of the Bodhisattva vow within Mahayana Buddhism: a shift away from individual enlightenment and escape into Nirvana, toward a pledge to remain in the phenomenal world for the service of collective awakening.
We see it in the birth of Christianity, directly in the life of Jesus, who rejected a First Axial ascetic path in favor of one that fully embraced the world—he feasted, danced, and wept, all the while associating with those designated outcasts and sinners. He refused to recognize the expected divisions between sacred and profane. This full on embrace of phenomenal existence was enshrined in Christianity’s core doctrine of the Incarnation—that “the Word became flesh” in the world “God so loved”—but the Second Axial impulse of its founder was repeatedly roped back into the existing First Axial road maps.
Most clearly, perhaps, we see the Second Axial emergence in Islam and its mystical tradition, Sufism. The Islamic world took the rhythm of monastic prayer and offered it in the marketplace. Like Christianity, it broke out of the ethnic and tribal identity of its parent religion, Judaism (which itself never completely lost touch with its pre-Axial earthiness and embrace of the world). Islam’s mystical path, based on the life of a prophet who was husband, lover, parent, warrior, and statesman, found it practically impossible to give way to the First Axial impulse toward asceticism and monasticism. Sufism pledged to keep the contemplative life fully integrated into the life of the world. It was in many ways the first wave of what many today are calling “the new monasticism.”
Today we can claim these streams for what they are: the early in-breaking of Second Axial consciousness, a dramatic shift away from the dualistic separation of “Spirit” from “world.” Channels for these waters are the ones we must dig and deepen. As this Second Axial Awakening takes hold on the global scale, we must begin the work of reimagining and realigning our First Axial religions. What will change when we see these great traditions as so many currents within a vast planetary movement of awakening and integration? How will we carry their wisdom forward in an age characterized by a primary consciousness of union, belonging, and interconnection?
I believe that our hope still lies in our religions, and that we abandon them at a great loss. They hold much of the wisdom we will need in this next great transformation. But the invitation now is to a dance, not a lecture. The traditions will no longer be only the teachers, but the students as well. As they teach us, we will teach them. The evolution, like all such dances, will be mutual. The wheel will turn once more and the waters will flow powerful and strong, the Divine Heartbeat loud and full.
[1] named such by Ewert Cousins in his stunning Christ of the 21st Century (New York, NY: Continuum, 1992), 7ff.
[2] credit for naming this window of history the “Axial Age” goes to Karl Jaspers in his seminal Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History (Zurich: Artemis, 1949), 19-43.
Matthew Wright is an Episcopal priest working to renew the Christian Wisdom tradition within a wider interspiritual framework. Alongside his practice of Christianity, he draws deeply from the sacred worlds of Islamic Sufism and Vedanta. Matthew serves as priest-in-charge at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, NY and is a teacher for Northeast Wisdom, a non-profit rooted in the contemplative teaching lineage of Cynthia Bourgeault. He lives with his wife Yanick alongside the brothers of Holy Cross Monastery. Matthew is an up-and-coming speaker and retreat leader, and regular contributor for the Contemplative Journal where he writes on a variety of spiritual subjects.
This article originally appeared at http://
*header photo credit: NASA
Podcast: Contemplify
Host: Paul Swanson
iTunes
Enneagram teacher Chris Heuertz will help you understand how to utilize the Enneagram to work with these questions with a deeper sense of self-awareness to find your way home to your True Self. He is the author of The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth.
A Reflection by Phileena Heuertz
Last year, at the invitation of renowned Cistercian monk Fr. Thomas Keating, four of among the most prominent living western Christian contemplative teachers gathered in Snowmass at St. Benedict’s Monastery. In addition to Fr. Keating, three others gathered in respectful friendship: Rev. Dr. Tilden Edwards, Fr. Laurence Freeman, and Fr. Richard Rohr. Each of these men are recognized as being at the forefront of the Western Christian contemplative renewal, and each founded respective contemplative organizations.
United by their shared commitment to the Christian contemplative tradition and concern for the healing of our world, after their week-long dialogue, they determined it was important to gather a group of younger contemplative leaders. A name for the gathering soon emerged: “New Contemplative Leaders Exchange.” It was important to the founders that this be a genuine “exchange,” learning from one another and the Holy Spirit within each of us.
So, August 14-18, 2017, I joined twenty other “younger” contemplatives at Snowmass, along with the four teachers who invited us. We were organized in groups of five or six according to the founder and his organization that we were representing.
Rev. Dr. Margaret Benefiel, the current Executive Director of Shalem, was asked by the founders to facilitate our conversations, and the entire gathering was funded by the Trust for the Meditation Process, Minneapolis, MN.
As you can imagine, it was an opportunity of a lifetime. I was so honored to be included in the meeting, and upon arrival was greeted by some of the brightest and most compassionate Christians I’ve ever met.
While it was obvious that we were not the only younger leaders on the contemplative landscape, it was apparent that our relationship with the teachers was one of trust. We had been invited out of the inspiration that emerged among the elders the year prior. They wanted to identify a few younger contemplatives who could be entrusted with their wisdom lineages in order to nurture and advance the movement in the coming years.
Following are the next generation contemplative leaders who were present at the Exchange, representing the corresponding founders and their organizations.
Tilden Edwards, Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation:
Thomas J. Bushlack, Ph.D. St. Louis, MO, Associate Professor of Theology & Christian Ethics, Aquinas Institute of Theology, Representative to the Exchange and Trustee, Trust for Meditation Process
Rev. Dr. Stuart Higginbotham, Gainesville, GA, Rector, Grace Episcopal Church
Bo Karen Lee, Ph.D., Princeton, NJ, Associate Professor of Spiritual Theology and Formation, Princeton Theological Seminary
Jessica (Jessie) M. Smith, Ph.D., Washington DC, Director of Research and Planning, General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church
Rev. Matthew Wright, Woodstock, NY, Rector, St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church
Laurence Freeman, World Community for Christian Meditation:
Sarah Bachelard, Bruce, Australia, Director Benedictus Contemplative Church
Drs. Sicco Claus, MaPhil, Den Haag, Netherlands, Ph.D. student, public school teacher, and National Coordinator of the Netherlands for World Community for Christian Meditation
Leonardo Correa, Porto Alecre, Brazil, Director of Communications, World Community for Christian Meditation
Karen Pedigo, Ph.D., Frankfort, IL, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, The Center for Mindfulness Psychotherapy, Teacher, World Community for Christian Meditation
Fr. Vladimir Volrab, Decin, Czech Republic, Hussite Priest, Bishop’s Vicar, National Coordinator of World Community for Christian Meditation
Thomas Keating, Contemplative Outreach:
Sabina Alkire, Ph.D., Oxford, United Kingdom, Director Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford, Associate Priest, Parish of Cowley St John, East Oxford
Erik Keeney, Snowmass, CO, Cistercian monk St. Benedict’s Monastery, OCSO, Thomas Keating’s assistant
Mark Kutolowski, Thetford, VT, Metanoia of Vermont
Fr. Justin Lanier, Bennington, VT, Rector, St. Peter’s Church
Rory McEntee, Madison, NJ, Ph.D. student, Drew University
Rafael Dickson Morales, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation:
Adam Bucko, Nashotah, WI, M.Div. student, Nashota House Theological Seminary
Phileena Heuertz, Omaha, NE, Founding Partner, Gravity, a Center for Contemplative Activism
Mark Longhurst, Williamstown, MA, Pastor, First Congregational Church, Editor, Ordinary Mystic, www.ordinarymystic.net
Kirsten Oates, Sausalito, CA, Managing Director Program Design and Teacher Relations, Center for Action and Contemplation
Gabrielle Stoner, Ada, MI, M.A. theology student Chicago Theological Seminary
During the course of four days we began each morning at 6:30 for meditation, followed by grand silence through breakfast until beginning our dialogue for the day at 9:30 am. Two more meditation or silent prayer sits punctuated the days, in addition to prayer and Eucharist with Fr. Thomas’ Cistercian, (Trappist), community.
During the first complete day, the left brain came out in full force with each group proposing important issues of concern for the future of the contemplative movement. Chief among the issues included addressing two elements in the movement’s shadow: one that is dominated by white middle and upper class Christians and lacking concerted action for social change. Several recognized the poverty of our friendships and the need to join with more leaders of color to be able to do the collective healing our world needs.
The Rohr group, of which I was a part, made the following statement:
We cherish the gifts of the Christian Contemplative Tradition. We honor the lives and work of our founders who have evolved this tradition. We desire to participate in evolving this contemplative tradition and make it accessible to the masses because we believe in its relevancy and transformative depth.
And for it to be truly transformative we need to address our movement’s current shadow:
We recognize the poverty of our friendships in this Exchange and desire to heal divisions with historically oppressed people unrepresented through humble, open, dialogue, friendship, and co-creating communion paradigm models (social justice).
Our ideas shape reality. Incarnational theology and embodied mysticism require paying attention to the bodies around us.
Teresa Pasquale Mateus’ leadership with the Mystic Soul Conference coming up in January 2018 was mentioned, and members were invited to consider attending the conference to listen, learn, and build community.
Other issues brought into focus included:
By the second day, a significant shift occurred. The right collective brain awakened (no doubt due to our collective prayer sits). This day was marked with vulnerability, deepening friendship, and a commitment to supporting one another.
Being located in the sacred valley of Snowmass, drenched in solitude, silence, and stillness and years and years of collective prayer, and participating in a minimum of ninety minutes of meditation each day, served to help open us to the intuitive, spiritual dimension of our collective body. So that by the final day, we were grounded in friendship and deeper trust, and unified in a collective desire to work together in service of the healing of our world.
But of course, four days for a group of unfamiliar people is hardly enough time to tackle the challenges before us.
So, by the final day, with the left and right hemispheres of our collective primary brain united, and the secondary brain (our intuitive gut) energized, and with the insights and wisdom of our founders, we agreed to a few modest commitments:
This is only the beginning.
Since the founding of Shalem in 1973, Contemplative Outreach in 1984, Center for Action and Contemplation in 1986, and World Community for Christian Meditation in 1991, we have spanned nearly half a century. These renowned Western Christian contemplative teachers and their respective organizations have determinedly helped to renew the Western Christian contemplative tradition for our time. And in all those years of sacrificial service, 2016 was the first year all four of the founders had ever been altogether.
2017 marks a huge shift in connection, friendship, networking, and support for the contemplative movement. It seems only natural that we can anticipate a compounding effect of our meeting this year—the beginning of a commitment to unite contemplatives everywhere in our shared desire to be of service to the evolution of consciousness, and to heal our world through contemplative practice and compassionate action.
Mark Kutolowski put it this way:
“I left feeling incredibly humbled by the deep trust of these four contemplative elders – trust in the Holy Spirit’s work in our generation and in the world. In our group I saw people who have committed their lives to building on the founders’ insights, and who seek to bring the gifts of contemplation to affect bodily transformation and profound social change. I feel great joy in being a part of a community of love who experiences contemplation as central to the Christian story, and is ready to support the larger body of Christ in growing in prayerful intimacy with God.”
Reference:
Benefiel, Margaret (2017 August 3). “Contemplative Founders Meeting with Young Contemplative Leaders,” Religion News Service. Retrieved from http://religionnews.com/2017/08/03/contemplative-founders-meeting-with-young-contemplative-leaders/
Other New Contemplatives Reflections:
Bushlack, Thomas (2017 August 25). “Bearing (True) Witness,” Creating Space for Transformation. Retrieved from https://thomasjbushlack.com/2017/08/25/bearing-true-witness/
Higginbotham, Stuart (2017 August 25). “Minister’s message: A Journey from impasse to imagination in Christ,” The Times. Retrieved from https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/life/ministers-message-journey-impasse-imagination-christ/
Photo Credit: Tom Bushlack, Richard Rohr, and Phileena Heuertz
by Eric Leroy Wilson
The memories of the older women I observed as a child at Riverview Church are etched indelibly in my mind. This church, built by the sweat and labor of my grandmother and grandfather, was the seedbed of my contemplative life. That church was sacred ground defended and held by these warrior women of faith. Their work-creased hands, sculpted by caring and cotton picking, offered bits of peppermint candy out of the corners of secondhand purses. Their backs were made strong by stooping and picking up the pieces of broken men shattered by a world antagonistic to their very being. These women were fierce. While denied access to adequate education, these women held depth. Their very presence functioned as midwifery to my faith. As they held vigil over their own sorrows during worship they would coax and wheedle the sacred, which was buried within me, to the surface. And these women moaned as the Holy Spirit moaned and as the earth moaned. They sang from a place as deep as the bowels of slave ships and yet from such a thin space you could swear you saw a glimpse of heaven and earth becoming one. And as the preacher preached and as holy words were proclaimed they would say, “Yeeeeeesssssss!” This was different than a typical exclamation of, “Amen!” This was not just some throw away, “Hallelujah!” This was a profoundly felt and richly stated, “Yeeeeeesssssss!” And their “Yeeeeeesssssss!” may be the solution to many, if not all of the problems our world faces today, because their “Yeeeeeesssssss!” is so vastly different from the dangerous “yes” of our day.
So often our “yes” is the reactionary “yes” to obligations we never really bought into. Sometimes we say yes and agree to do things we don’t have time to do only to gain approval from people we don’t even like. The dangerous “yes” of our day is a “yes” to exploitation of the other due to the false vow we make in our heart that we live in a world of lack, want, and scarcity. The “yes” we say from a place of assumed deficiency affirms our willingness to horde resources, turn a blind eye to systemic disparity, and find comfort in our apathy for the other. Yet all the while Jesus invites us to see a world that can feed a multitude with a few loaves and fish. Jesus bursts on the scene turning our eyes from scarcity to living life, and living it to the full.
Sure there are the benign “yeses” of our day. The “yes” we say to meals with loved ones, the “yes” to walks with four-legged friends, the “yes” to coffee breaks and “yes” to social media likes of smiling babies and silly memes. All of these “yeses” are good and are the stuff of life lived. But so many of the “yeses” we use as common currency purchase for us all hardships when they are spent on agreeing to exploitation, estrangement, and indifference.
But if we look into the depths of our being there is the “Yeeeeeesssssss” within us all. In the recesses of our heart where our spirit and the Spirit of the Divine keep company with one another is our “Yeeeeeesssssss” of sacred consent. This is the place where your heart says “yes” to eternity. There is in the deepest place of your heart a space where you offer consent to all of God’s invitation. This is the place where we say “yes” to God’s invitation to intimacy. This sacred place within is where we say “yes” to God’s invitation to be transformed in the likeness of Christ. This is a likeness characterized by grace, joy, forgiveness, and vast pools of compassion — all of which is willing to be spread thick and wide and indiscriminately over all. In times of silence, stillness, meditation and keeping company with God, God is faithful to reveal this glorious area of our sacred consent. Our job is to familiarize ourselves with this place of sacred consent. And once we are familiar with this space, we must stand up with in this interior place and practice living from our sacred consent.
I’m convinced this is what these women were attesting to so many years ago in that shack of a church building. As the rough-hewn pews creaked under the weight of the lives they carried, these women offered shouts from the place of their sacred consent. While they knew the pain of loving too hard and working fingers to the bone, they also knew there was a place inside themselves where they and their God met. And anytime a passage was read or a song sung or a thought offered that happened to brush up against that place in their heart, they had no choice but to offer to us all a resounding, “Yeeeeeesssssss!” And I’ve spent the better part of my life now trying to find mine. When I do, I pray my “Yeeeeeesssssss!” brings as much light in this world as their “Yeeeeeesssssss!” did mine.
Eric Wilson serves as the Associate Chaplain at Pepperdine University in Malibu California. Wilson is a certified Spiritual Director, Executive Coach and is a religion blogger for the HuffPost. He is an award winning playwright and theatrical director. His work has been published and performed around the country including the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Eric’s work attempts to leverage contemplative practice, the arts, and soul care for the purpose of fostering social justice in the world. Wilson’s book, Faith the First Seven Lessons was released Fall of 2016.
by Elisabeth Barahona
Marriage is a mysterious journey of learning how to consent to God in order to learn how to say “yes” to one’s spouse. It is a delicate interdependence of honoring both the I and the we in this journey towards marital togetherness. Archbishop Desmond Tutu provides a powerful framework called Ubuntu that encapsulates how the individual and the community cannot be divorced. In short, Ubuntu is “I am because we are.”
The difficulty of marriage cannot be underestimated. The first years of our marriage forced us to examine painful and ugly parts of ourselves. We decided that one thing we would always strive for is to be honest with ourselves first prior to compromising on a given issue. Ten years in, we are still figuring out how to live into that. We have learned that when we begin to feel anger or resentment towards each other, it is a sign that our individual voices have already been muted. We have to spend time hearing our own voice before we can offer it to anyone else. That is our individual responsibility; no one can do this for us. I am learning that there is room for the Ubuntu phrase to also become inverted, We are only if I am.
How can we honor the I in we? Contemplative Christian practices offer us a model. These practices (centering prayer, breath prayer, lectio divina) teach us to listen instead of talk. Prayer becomes communion, rather than just one-way communication. Submitting ourselves to this Divine presence requires us to show up and to consent to God’s movement. I am not in charge. I am not in control. I am not the one changing or illuminating. Although a limited analogy, it is as if I am a cell phone showing up to be connected to the power source. I am doing the work of showing up to prayer, but I relinquish the power and control to the one who is doing the charging. I am showing up to wait on the Lord to illuminate and change me.
When we wait on the Lord to show up to us, we encounter a God that has always offered this remarkable story of Love. Contemplative prayer allows us to cultivate the tools through silence, solitude and stillness to tune into the Divine. This invitation has always been extended, we are just learning to accept the invitation. This invitation is not new, it’s just newly available to us because we are learning to finally listen. Learning to listen to God’s voice is, in fact, learning how to listen to our own voice. And listening to our own voice is learning to listen to God’s voice. I am because we are. We are because I am. When our vertical relationship with God is strengthened, our horizontal relationship in marriage is equally strengthened.
Contemplative practices are offering me a model for communion with God that first allows me to find my own voice in this Divine story of Love. I cannot know my voice apart from God’s. Our job is to show up. God’s job is to do the rest. Then, only then, can we truly show up to our marriage with our voice that is now grounded in the I and the Divine we. We have expanded the circle of love into three way communion.
I am because we are. We are because I am. Marriage is a mysterious journey of consenting to the Divine first, which in turn fuels the “yes” to our marital union. Marriage is a painful and amazing process of learning to expand our internal and external circles of love. Expand the circle from I to we. We were never meant to do this life alone. It teaches us about the fullness of what love can be. The circle is much bigger than we can imagine.
Elisabeth Barahona considers herself rich because she has the privilege of sharing her life with her amazing husband and three children. Professionally, she is a Licensed clinical social worker at Maple City Health Care Center in Goshen, IN. She is an artist, beauty-seeker, life-learner, justice-pursuer and ever on a quest for her soul.
This piece originally appeared on Menno Snapshots, the official blog for Mennonite Church USA
Our recent presidential election has exposed and emphasized a great rift in the people who make up our nation. Political, economic, social, and religious ideologies may not have ever been more at odds with one another.
Our new millennia has brought with it so much change. It’s as if our world has been advancing at a faster rate than ever before, and it’s hard for us all to keep up. So some of us are nostalgic, looking backward to bygone days when America seemed simpler and safer. While others are dreaming, look forward to what America can be. What’s critical is that we examine what America is, right here, right now.
That’s what the current socio-political climate is giving us a chance to do. And it’s clear that we as a people are severely divided in our experiences and our perspectives. But I gather when it comes to our values, we all hold a lot more in common than it appears; values that our Declaration of Independence upholds as inalienable rights:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
And so rather than demonize one political party or another, or one person or group of people or another, let us find ways to see and hear how one another desires these rights, as a people, as a society, as an American family.
We belong to one another. Let us find ways to see our self in the other. For ultimately we are not battling each other, but illusory ideologies that threaten our common humanity.
Many of us have felt very overwhelmed by the president’s first thirteen days in office and the upheaval his executive orders have caused. Being overwhelmed can lead to apathy and disempowerment. So let us resist such paralytic responses by taking a big deep breath. Then, in addition to fortifying a daily contemplative practice, consider the following commitments related to constructive ACTION that you can take:
Be (A)lert.
These times require we not sit idly by. Recognize that if you feel relatively unthreatened by the current administration that that is a luxury for you. Recognize the populations of people who are genuinely afraid (women, LGBTQIA persons, blue collar workers, the disabled, immigrants and refugees) and stay accurately informed about how Trump’s executive orders and administration may impact their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Imagine what you would hope from others if it were your life that felt threatened.
Be (C)ourageous.
Be willing to stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable members of our society regardless of political party, race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
Be (T)houghtful.
Before you react to the socio-political climate, practice a little restraint and think. Let thoughtful observation of your own biases and compulsions inform the way you interact with others.
Be (I)nquisitive.
Stay curious. It’s easy to dehumanize the “other” when we don’t personally know her or him. Get to know people who look different, think different, and behave differently from you.
Be (O)pen.
When we feel threatened, our basic physiological reflex is to self-protect. But we are more than our physiology. We have consciousness and inherent power to transcend our impulses. Rather than close up and withdraw or close up and attack, let’s dare to remain open, knowing that the greatest threat we face is betraying our highest potential to love our enemies, forgive those who hurt us, and co-create a peaceable society.
Be (N)ourishing.
During trying times on a personal or collective scale, men and women committed to contemplative activism will practice restraint from their impulses to fight or flight and choose the more challenging way of nourishing that which is hurting. Our society is hurting. Our neighbors are hurting. Members of our family are tired and afraid. Consider what you can do to nourish the people around you and the spheres of influence you inhabit.
And if these commitments are difficult for you, as they surely will be at one time or another, remember that contemplative practice makes such embodied commitments possible. Now more than ever perhaps, we must adopt regular contemplative practice. For spiritual practice like contemplative prayer and meditation open the mind and the heart, releasing our best selves to co-create Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness for all.
*header photo credit: Christian Battaglia
by Drew Jackson
In William Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure, it was Claudio who said, “Death is a fearful thing.” These words resonate with each of us in one way or another. We all have fears associated with death. Like the child who is afraid of the dark, we fear what we cannot see. We fear that which we cannot know for certain. Fear of the unknown causes us to have great anxiety at the thought of death.
Will the process be painful? Is there any life after death? How will I be remembered when I’m gone, if I’m even remembered at all? These are just a few of the questions that race through our minds when we are confronted with the thought of our own death.
Not only do we have fear of the unknown when it comes to death, but we also fear the loss of control. Death is the ultimate surrendering of control. It is the final act of letting go. This, however, is what causes us to fear because we like to grip tightly to life. We fear death because we don’t want to lose life. Yet it was Jesus who said, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”
This is the great paradox: that life best lived is lived as a series of losses, a series of deaths. Death is not meant to be a one time event at the end of life but, rather, a daily experience by which by which we learn to continually embrace the unknown, step into mystery, and release the need to control. The last words that Jesus breathed out as he hung on the cross were, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” However, we know that this committing or surrendering of the will to God, this death, was not just a one time act but, it was a moment by moment practice throughout the life of Jesus.
The practices of contemplative spirituality, such as silence, solitude, and stillness, make space for us to learn this type of surrender in the midst of our daily lives. Thus, the contemplative way is a practice in “death.” If you have ever witnessed the moment of death you know that death is ultimately silent, still, and alone. The practices of contemplative spirituality prepare us for this. The contemplative way thrusts us into the beautiful struggle of embracing the unknown and losing the need to control.
In silence and solitude we confront our fear of the unknown because we are forced to come face to face with ourselves. We fear what we cannot see or discern, and most of us live without being able to see what lies beneath the surface of our own lives.
We often drown ourselves in noise and busy ourselves with activity because we don’t know what we will discover if we are left to our own selves and our own thoughts. Yet it is when we come to see ourselves that we learn what must metaphorically, die. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I die every day.” The death he was referring to was the death of what he often called the flesh, or what the mystics call the false self or the shadow self. When we adopt contemplative practices as regular parts of our lives, we are taught how to welcome death to our false self, instead of resist it.
Both Scripture and nature teach us that death is the pathway to life.
Jesus said in John 12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Without death there can be no life. Learning to practice death through contemplation teaches us what it looks like to live, and live fruitfully. The fruit that results from death to the false self is rarely, if ever, for us, but it is for others to experience life. The Apostle Paul speaks to this when he says in 2 Corinthians 4:12, “death is at work in us, but life in you.” This is the story of the Christian gospel, that death for Jesus meant life for the world. When the gospel becomes a lived reality in our lives, we practice death so that others can experience life.
To some, pondering death seems morbid, but Scripture teaches us that in doing so there is wisdom to be found. This is because pondering and practicing death teaches us how to live. Death shows all of us that we are finite and have limitations. When we learn to practice death through contemplative practice we develop the ability to see our manifold limitations. The practices of silence, stillness, and solitude help us learn that we cannot control everything, and they invite us to practice death by embracing our limitations.
William Shakespeare famously said in his play Julius Caesar, “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.” In making comment on this quote in his book A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway says:
(The man who first said that) was probably a coward…. He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent.
I stand in agreement with Hemingway in saying that wisdom is found in learning to die many deaths. Contemplative spirituality invites us to be those who can say, “every day I die a thousand deaths.” This is wisdom. This, indeed, is life.
Death and resurrection are not reserved for the end of life. Both realities are meant to be experienced every moment. The practices of contemplative spirituality are given to us as gifts that lead us into dying a thousand deaths each day.
As we learn to practice death by way of contemplation, death at the end of life is no longer a fear, but is received as the next logical step. Death is no longer an unknown for us because we already know that life comes through the process of death. We will have lived that reality each day.
At the end of life we will no longer fear the loss of control because we know that the loss of control leads to true rest in God. As we learn death through contemplative practice, we experience afresh what life is like connected to the Source. Contemplation teaches us to die to the desire to go our own way, and to embrace the continual invitation to return to God.
All that death is, finally, is a return to the Source, our final return to God.
Drew Jackson serves as the Associate Pastor at GraceWay Community Church. He is also a part of the Lausanne Movement. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with his wife Genay, and their two beautiful daughters Zora and Suhaila.
By George Mekhail
I have changed a lot over the past 18 months. I’ve deconstructed much of my worldview and consider the journey as just getting started. I am a heretic, a pirate and a mystic. I used to see things very differently than I see them today, and I hope that this process of change, growth and evolution only continues. I cannot deny that what I’ve experienced has been healthy.
I often ask myself how I got here, why I’m here and if it’s a good thing that I’m here. I talk to myself more and more these days. I ask: what factors lead to my spiritual curiosity, what moments shaped my trajectory and what common thread has been there throughout? Do I like me more or less? Do I allow others to define me or do I find my value and worth in Eternal things?
I’m learning that asking questions is far more important than answering questions. This is one of the most valuable lessons that contemplation has taught me on my journey.
Let’s be honest: on the surface, answering questions is way more fun than asking questions. If I am answering a question, I am the center of attention. I am on the conclusive side of the discussion. I am in control. But, if I am asking a question, I am deflecting attention. I am teeing up the discussion, for better or worse. I am releasing control. Asking a question opens things up and possibilities abound. Answering a question shuts things down, declaring alternative possibilities irrelevant.
Now there is obviously a time to answer questions, I’m not anti-answers. But I would describe this pivot towards more question asking and less question answering as the largest contributor to this current season of peace in my life. A paradoxically difficult season, filled with extremely challenging days, betrayals, insecurity and instability. But despite the external factors that might be perceived as negative, contemplative practice helps me count them as blessings.
A few weeks back, after some time in reflection, I started to realize that I was feeling misunderstood. I’m not sure if that’s common or not, but this came to light in a recent session with Phileena, my spiritual director. She proceeded like she often does, by asking me to “withhold judgement, consider how it feels to be misunderstood.”
If you’re like me, that is a difficult question. I’m generally unaware of my feelings, often preferring solutions to stillness. So if I feel misunderstood, my next step is typically to ramp up efforts to deliver clarity so I can be understood. Boom. Problem solved, question answered. No feelings necessary.
Except when it doesn’t go down that way. Which is more often the case. It starts a fruitless cycle of frustration which does not satisfy the soul. Even if I successfully deliver clarity, I never actually dealt with the ramifications of feeling misunderstood.
That’s why I love the phrase “without judgement.” Phileena always emphasizes this part of the process, and it took me a while to see its real value. But in my desire to explore why I’m feeling misunderstood, the temptation is to offer simplistic answers which carry unhelpful judgements like “because ‘Nikole’ just doesn’t get it” or “because I haven’t spent enough time explaining my idea to ‘Nikole’.”
In my case, feeling misunderstood requires me to actually FEEL misunderstood.
That’s a huge step. To feel our feelings instead of merely talking about them.
Then a deep breath.
Man. I feel really misunderstood.
Now, without judgement. {I’m not mad, upset, disappointed, proud of myself/others for this feeling. This feeling simply is my experience.}
I am now aware of this feeling. I acknowledge it, I welcome it, I learn to integrate it – without judgement – into my present circumstance.
How does this feeling of being misunderstood relate to my ego? What other questions does this reveal and how do they reveal the unconscious patterns I operate out of daily?
Another deep breath.
I don’t want to oversimplify a contemplative process that actually requires a lot of hard work. Adopting a contemplative stance in life is like working out, studying for an exam or investing in a relationship. It requires focus and commitment. But the fruit is incredible. Instead of reacting to life, we learn to respond. Reacting generates a lot of contraction. Responding generates expansiveness.
Instead of relentlessly pursuing to deliver answers, I’m learning to reach out and claim the gift of more questions–which have turned out to be critical to my growth. Questions develop our awareness. Furthermore, questions acknowledge that no matter how much “Nikole” doesn’t get it, her experience is also her experience and it carries its own validity.
Contemplation is teaching me that questions are greater than answers, because questions lead to more meaningful connection to myself, to God and to others.
George Mekhail has been serving as the Executive Pastor at EastLake Community Church since July 2011. He is also the Chair of the Board for Gravtity, a Center for Contemplative Activism. He lives in Bothell, Washington with his wife Danielle, and their two beautiful children, Kingston and Saxyn. He has a deep set love for his family and makes it a goal in life to show up for them.