Carl McColman's Blog, page 3

Register Now for the January 2025 Centering Prayer Summit!

Friends, I’ll be part of the January 2025 Centering Prayer Summit sponsored by Closer Than Breath. This online event takes place on January 25 and 26 —click here to register!

Register now, because the price goes up on January 2. Early bird pricing is only $99, for two days of contemplative teaching — including two sessions by Cynthia Bourgeault (and one by me!).

Other speakers at this weekend event include Seifu Anil Singh-Molares, Nhien Vuong, Heather Ruce, Lawrence Hamilton, and Jana Rentzel. ...

“Mystical Journey” — Contemplative Inspiration Delivered to Your Inbox

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 support and through the wisdom of the great mystics of ages past.  Therefore, I’m creating emails based on quotations from the mystics, along with my own m...

Let’s Elect Silence

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? Evelyn Waugh edited (and abridged) the first UK edition of the book, which he renamed as Elected Silence.

Americans are so accustomed to associate e...

Subscribe to the Mystical Journey Substack

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 receive the new posts. Click here to subscribe to “Mystical Journey.”

If you’d like to learn more about my new Substack, then read on. I’m exploring the the...

Examen of the Senses (Inclusive Version)

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 a class I’m teaching for Unity Worldwide Ministry’s formation program for Spiritual Directors — so I’ve revised it slightly to give it more of a univ...

Themes that Inspired “Eternal Heart”

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 mystics of the past, such as Julian of Norwich, Thomas Merton, or the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. It’s a bit humbling when I’m asked t...

Join Me for the Spiritual Wanderlust Contemplative Summit (October 24-27)!

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 contemplative practice and spiritual living.

The event is free, but you need to pre-register. You can do so by clicking here: school.spiritualwanderlust.o...

Who’s Giving Up On (the Institutional) Church? It’s No Longer Just the “Casual Christians” who are Disappearing

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 people leaving are among the most committed—those who studied the holy texts; served others tirelessly; gave at the expense of themselves, their families,...

Deconstructing Mysticism

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 concept of deconstruction, it comes out of French philosophy, associated especially with Jacques Derrida. Derrida and his followers use this term in a r...

Four Dimensions of Mindfulness, Brainwaves and Centering Prayer

In chapter five of his book Buddha Is as Buddha Does, dharma teacher Lama Surya Das offers this fascinating insight into the nature of mindfulness:

According to Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there are four kinds of mindfulness. First comes average mindfulness—the attention that springs naturally and spontaneously through our own interest in a particular person, situation, or phenomenon. For the most part, it’s concerned with worldly matters and lasts as long as the interest itself. The second kind...