“Oshida’s life and legacy is an experience of the spiritual senses knowing the mystical voice. Biblical in sources and Buddhist in form, reading this book took me as a reader to the great pause of silence.” — Sister Meg Funk, OSB Lucien Miller received his PhD in comparative literature from Berkely and taught Comparative Literature and Chinese at the University of Massachusetts. He is a deacon, spiritual director, and author. Lucien and I talk about his book, Jesus in the Hands of Buddha: The Life and Legacy of Shigeto Vincent Oshida, OP. Fr. Oshida taught with a clarity born of …
Author: Swanson
In Hard Times, In All Times, Eat Sacred Words
“You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesFor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.” — ‘Wild Geese‘ by Mary Oliver Listen to Carmen’s first conversation with Contemplify on her revolutionary translation of Brother Lawrence here. Carmen Acevedo Butcher, PhD, is an author, teacher, poet, and award-winning translator of spiritual texts. Today Carmen and I talk about the importance of practice; chanting, lectio divina,walking meditation, poetry, drawing, and other customized pecularily particular practices. Carmen models what her practices looks, sounds, …
Kim Haines-Eitzen on Practicing the Cello in the Dark and Sonorous Deserts
“A meditative blend of history and travelogue . . . brings the soundscape of the desert to life.” ― New Yorker Dr. Kim Haines-Eitzen is a Professor of Religious Studies with specialties in Early Christianity, Early Judaism, and other ancient Mediterranean Religions at Cornell University. Her book Sonorous Desert: What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks—and What It Can Teach Us explores the dynamic relationships between ambient environmental landscapes and the religious imagination, especially in the case of desert monasticism. Dr. Haines-Eitzen was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Nazareth. Exploring the Negev and Sinai deserts in her formative years …