Carl McColman's Blog, page 68
August 26, 2013
Shine On You Immortal Diamond
Immortal Diamond by Richard Rohr
Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr just keeps releasing wonderful books. Immortal Diamond: The Search For Our True Self picks up the language of Cistercian authors like Thomas Merton and M. Basil Pennington, who have written about the “true self” and the “false self” as ways of understanding the spirituality of being human. These terms point to a distinction between the “false” self-protective dynamics of the various egoic masks that people wear to simply function i...
August 23, 2013
Meditation with Liquid Mind
Liquid Mind X: Meditation
As a general rule, I believe that meditation or contemplative prayer are best practiced in silence — which means no TV blaring in the background, no MP3 player churning out sound, no computer or stereo making noise within earshot. Even using a so-called white noise machine is, to me, at best a necessary evil: perhaps required to mask the normal distracting sounds of children playing or whatever else might be happening in an adjacent room or apartment: but far less des...
August 20, 2013
Six Minutes of Gratitude
This video has been on Youtube for almost two years now, so you may already be familiar with it. But if, like me up until Sunday, you’ve never seen it, then give yourself the treat of watching. It’s only about six minutes long, features gorgeous cinematography, a precocious little girl at the beginning who is too cute for words, a great message about gratitude and living in the present, and narration by the Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. A film by LouieSchwartzberg. Enjoy…
August 19, 2013
Born in the Fire of Contemplative Prayer: Richard Peace on “Contemplative Evangelism”
Richard Peace, contemplative evangelist
In my post last Friday on Why Contemplation Matters, a reader named Brian referred me to a PDF called Listening for the Still Speaking God: Contemplative Evangelism featuring an excerpt of an article called “Evangelism and Spiritual Formation” by Richard Peace, who teaches at Fuller Seminary. I can’t find the original article online, but there’s plenty to chew on in the PDF. Here’s a taste for you:
What if prayer were the central component of evangelism?...
August 17, 2013
The Spirituality of Howard Thurman
Check out the following video… it features a friend of mine (Lerita Coleman Brown) and author Kirk Byron Jones discussing the spirituality of the great American mystic Howard Thurman, his influence on Martin Luther King, Jr., and how a balanced spirituality of contemplation and action was so inspirational for the American Civil Rights movement. Well worth watching.
SDI Learns from Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD and the Rev. Kirk Byron Jones, PhD
August 16, 2013
Why Contemplation Matters
Photo by Fran McColman
Two significant insights into the importance of contemplation crossed my desk this week. The first, Reversing the Exodus, comes from the Association of Religion Data Archives, where writer David Briggs looks at research currently being done to understand religious congregations (across faith traditions) that are successful in engaging membership and participation of young adults. Briggs compiles a list of seven characteristics common to such youth-friendly communities, a...
August 9, 2013
Two Saturday events: in Atlanta and Richmond
If you live in or near Atlanta, GA or Richmond, VA, I hope you’ll come to one of these upcoming Saturday workshops! And even if you can’t make it, please tell your friends. And for more information about these or other events featuring Carl McColman, visit Carl’s Events Page.
View or download a flyer
In Atlanta, GA:
Beholding the Presence of God Every Day: Crafting a Personal Rule of Life
Saturday, August 24, 2013
8:30 am – 3:00 pm
Hosted by St. Bede’s Episcopal Church, 2601 Henderson Mill Road NE...
August 6, 2013
“Life is Change… How it Differs From the Rocks”
The Transfiguration
First of all, happy Feast of the Transfiguration, everyone! Today is the day liturgical Christians commemorate Jesus taking Peter, James and John onto the mountaintop where, in one of the Gospels’ most beautiful and mystical passages, we read this:
And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi,...
July 31, 2013
Contemplative Commerce
Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks
Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks
One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity
August Turak
Columbia Business School Publishing
The motto of Benedictine spirituality isora et labora — a deceptively simple Latin phrase that means “to pray and to work.” A variation of it,ora est labora, means “to prayis to work” — a sentiment handily embodied in the Latin words, whereora is actually part oflabora. Prayer and work: the heart of Benedictine spirituality, and...
June 30, 2013
Two More Wonderful Videos: Tilden Edwards and Richard Rohr
The treasures from Shalem, in honor of its 40th anniversary, just keep coming! Last week I posted a wonderful video featuring Shalem’s founder, Tilden Edwards, in conversation with a former Shalem director Carole Crumley and the Franciscan contemplative Richard Rohr. That video looked at how our understanding of contemplation has changed over the past four decades. Here are two more videos, apparently from the same conversation. The first explores the question “What drew you to the contemplat...
