Carl McColman's Blog, page 74
September 17, 2012
The Feast of Saint Hildegard
“The Six Days of Creation” illumination from Hildegard of Bingen’s “Scivias”
Today, September 17, 2012, is the first feast day for Saint Hildegard of Bingen, as a saint recognized universally within the Catholic Church.
Hildegard passed away on this day in 1179. It took 833 years for it to become an “official” saint’s day in the Catholic Calendar. Pope Benedict XVI recognized Hildegard as a saint just this past May.
In another 20 days — on October 7 — Hildegard will be declared a Doctor of the C...
September 5, 2012
Is Contemplation Boring?
My latest column has been posted at Patheos — it dares to ask the question Is Contemplation Boring?
Follow the link and see what you think!
September 3, 2012
Concerning the Heart, the Breath, and the Stories We Tell: Four Books for the Interfaith Seeker
God of Love
Here are four books, all recently published, that will nurture you as you deepen your spiritual journey, particularly from an interfaith perspective. Three of these titles are specifically designed to foster, or contribute to, interfaith conversation; the fourth is rooted in one particular tradition (Buddhism) but covers material on a topic (embodied spirituality) that can speak to practitioners from any tradition. Hopefully one or more of these books will speak to you.
The real tre...
September 1, 2012
In God’s eyes there is no limit to what we can become…
The Road to Eternal Life
It is important, however, to realize that the change willed by God is not the change that indicates nonacceptance of us as we are but that change foreseen by a creative vision that can perceive as-yet unrealized potentialities in us. In God’s eyes there is no limit to what we can become… We often think of conversion as being a change from a life of sin to a life of virtue; more often it is a matter of being called forth from our harmless comfort zone to take a less-tra...
August 27, 2012
Advance praise for “Answering the Contemplative Call”
Answering the Contemplative Call
What do Brian D. McLaren, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Ian Morgan Cron, Kyriacos Markides, Mirabai Starr, Phyllis Tickle, Richard Rohr, and Tilden Edwards (plus some others) have in common?They have all offered praise for my forthcoming book, Answering the Contemplative Call!
I’m honored and humbled that these folks, all of whom are among my favorite writers, would be so kind as to read and respond to my book, the follow-up to my 2010 book The Big Book of Christian M...
August 23, 2012
Hildegard’s Mystical Trinity
Hildegard’s Vision of the Trinity
My latest column has been published at Patheos. Follow this link to read it:A Mystical Vision of the Trinity.
It’s about Hildegard of Bingen and her vision of the Holy Trinity — which was depicted in one of the many illuminations found in the original manuscript of Hildegard’s book Scivias.
With Hildegard slated to be declared a Doctor of the Church on October 7, I’ll be teaching several classes and leading two retreats on Hildegard, both here in Georgia and in...
August 18, 2012
Renaissance for St. Francis’ Day!
I amsimply thrilled to post that Fran and Rhiannon and I have recently purchased our tickets to see Renaissance (the old 70s classical rock band, which re-formed in 2010) in its first concert in Atlanta in about 30 years! They will be at Variety Playhouse on October 4 — the Feast of Saint Francis. Not that there is anything particularly Franciscan about them (although we do know that Annie Haslam, the lead vocalist, is quite an animal lover). Frankly, I’d be happy to see Renaissance any day o...
August 13, 2012
A Tale of Two Bibles
This morning I woke up around two thirty after having a dream, which I wrote down:
I dreamt that a young man came to see me, with two gifts. They were both Bibles. We chatted a bit about how much he enjoyed my website and my writing, and so wanted to give me a Bible as a token of appreciation.
I smiled and opened the first box. In it was a gorgeous hardcover edition of the New American Standard Bible. I oohed and aahed over it and mentioned how happy I was with it, since I had the NASB electron...
August 11, 2012
Oops! My Apologies…
If you are a subscriber to this blog, you may have received twenty or so emails from the blog this afternoon — all for blog posts that have already been posted.
If so, please accept my apologies!
I was tinkering with the privacy settings in the blog, not realizing that doing so would trigger a round of emails to the blog subscribers. As soon as I realized what was happening, I stopped tinkering. But by then the damage was done.
As you delete all those unwanted messages in your inbox, I hope you...
Individuality and Union with God
A reader writes:
Carl,I am a devoted reader of your posts and always find much food for thought there. Thank you for tackling the throny questions of the contemplative life in such an accessible way.Here’s my question that arose from a conversation with a skeptical friend:If the goal of the contemplative is union with God, does the individual begin to disappear and lose his or her unique self (personality, emotions) in pursuing this goal? I have my own theory but I’d be interested in hearing y...
