Carl McColman's Blog, page 20

A Meditation on the Fruit of the Spirit (A Patreon Sneak Peek)

A note from Carl: Friends, I am currently writing a manuscript that I am calling Meditations on the Christian Mysteries. I’ve identified fifty-two key themes, wisdom teachings, and mystical principles of the Christian tradition — and each month, I take one of those themes and I wrote a meditation based on it. I’m well over halfway done — in fact, the meditation I’m sharing with you here is #37. I publish these meditations, as I write them, on my Patreon page, but once in a while I like to share ...

A New Thank You Gift for Patrons: “Contemplative” Prayer Cards!

Hello friends, here’s a little video for you to watch…

I recently did some training with the folks who operate Patreon, the membership website that provides a way for individuals to support creative professionals (like me). Over 100 people help make the Anamchara.com blog possible through Patreon, and their ongoing support has made a profound difference in my ability to manage — and write new content for — this blog.

Patreon encourages its creative professionals to develop small “thank you” gif...

“Contemplative Prayer is Dangerous — the Way Jesus is Dangerous”

A regular reader of this blog recently named Peter wrote to me:

Carl, I’ve been reading about the Jesus Prayer. On the Orthodox sites they stress that if you haven’t had any experience with this prayer that you should get guidance and that it’s dangerous to try it on your own. When reading about the Jesus Prayer on other Christian sites like the Catholic ones then this advice is not mentioned. Can you please share with me your take on it?

Peter, your question reminds me of post I made on Twitter...

A New Initiative for 2022: The Contemplative Study of Mystical Writings

Friends, I want to invite you to a special online meeting on Thursday, January 13 to talk about my new initiative, which I am calling “The Contemplative Study of Mystical Writings.” Hope to see you there — to register, click here.

This is an outgrowth of conversations I have been having through social media as well as with my blog’s financial backers, who support my work through Patreon. It began when I discovered that there is significant interest among my readers and contemplative friends to s...

A Great Mystical Book — With a Surprising Title

I’ve recently been re-reading one of the most fascinating and unusual books of mystical wisdom to have been written within the last 100 years. This is actually my third time through the book, and I know I will read it again, certainly more than once. It’s one of those rare books that rewards multiple readings, each new journey through it yielding new insights.

I’m not the only one who feels this way about this 20th-century contemplative masterpiece. Look at some of the wonderful endorsements thi...

The New “My Sweet Lord” Video is Lots of Fun, But Misses the Point of the Song

Last week, the George Harrison estate released a new, “official” video for Harrison’s 1970 masterpiece, “My Sweet Lord” from his magnum opus All Things Must Pass. It’s a playful and fun video, with a  kind  of goofy X-Files plot, featuring a star-studded cast (Mark Hamill, Fred Armison, Vanessa Bayer, Weird Al Yankovic, Rosanna Arquette, Joe Walsh, Kate Micucci, Claudia O’Doherty, along with Harrison’s wife and son, Olivia and Dhani, and his former bandmates Jeff Lynne and Ringo Starr (conspicuo...

Two Essential Questions for the Mystical Journey

I was speaking with a few friends of mine who are spiritual directors recently, and we were talking about the work they do accompanying people who seek to draw closer to God.

If you are not familiar with spiritual direction, it is a ministry of interactive care, in which a person supports another in the journey into deeper intimacy with God. A spiritual director does not “direct” in the sense of giving orders, but may provide a sense of orientation or calibration, helping to keep the conversatio...

Online Event: The Spirituality of Star Trek (February 17, 2022)

I recently had a conversation with my friend and colleague Alice Camille (author of books like Isaiah and the Kingdom of Peace) about our shared love for Star Trek. Well, before we knew it, we were cooking up this idea for an evening converation/reflection on the spirituality of Star Trek! It’s sponsored by the Rock Hill Oratory and will take place online on Thursday, February 17, 2022 at 7:30 PM US East Coast Time. Hope you can join us — and yes, you don’t have to be a Trek fan to participate!

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The Most Common Criticism of Centering Prayer — and Why It’s a Fallacy

Sigh.

Last night I stumbled across yet another website from a well-meaning, but obviously misinformed, Catholic blogger who attacks Centering Prayer as “un-Catholic.” Not only has she spilled a lot of ink on her blog about this topic, but she has written an e-book filled with her denunciations of Centering Prayer that you can buy on Amazon for just a few books. Forgive me for not linking back to this person or her e-book, but frankly I can’t in good conscience promote her or her work. Unfortunat...

Putting the “Christian” into “Christian Mysticism”

Mysticism crosses all religious and spiritual boundaries. In other words, mysticism — like prayer or meditation or worship or sacrifice — is a universal spiritual/religious concept, not something that is limited to just one religious or wisdom tradition.

What Baron Friedrich von Hugel called “the mystical element of religion” can be found in all the world’s great traditions, east and west, indigenous and cross-cultural. Granted, the word mysticism with its roots in Greek paganism and its rich co...