“The gate of heaven opens for us all, but the hinge swings outward as much as inward, leading not into some hermetically sealed chamber, but a spacious meadow where we find every person we’ve ever known, a field of solitaries loved beyond measure, a destination as near as our next breath.” — Fred Bahnson Immersion Journalist of the Soul with Fred Bahnson Fred Bahnson is an immersion journalist of the soul and one of my favorite public contemplative intellectuals. If you’ve been hanging out around Contemplify, you have likely heard his name or seen links to his work. And I am …
Author: Swanson
Answering the Monk Within with Beverly Lanzetta
“Contemplation is not a name for God. It is a condition of being-in-the-world that is necessary in order to bear (in the world) the divinity of the world.” – Beverly Lanzetta Answering the Monk Within with Beverly Lanzetta I first met Beverly Lanzetta a few years back when the opportunity arose for a couple of us to gather in a retreat house in the desert of New Mexico. At the time, I had just completed reading her book, The Monk Within: Embracing a Sacred Way of Life and was moved by its holistic contemplative invitation. The words that inspired me …
Advent Outpost from the Backporch (#3)
“Wherever humility goes, all inner disquiet ceases and outward adversities do not produce alarming impressions.” – St. Theopan the Recluse Advent Outpost from the Backporch (#3) This is the last round, my friends, as we tip toe towards the solstice before falling on top of Christmas. This is the last Advent outpost in the series. See, last year my wife and I started an Advent neighborhood get together last year; soup, wine, bread, cheese, poetry, stories, hymns, and children bellowing. A eucharist of sorts, but more with an ancient turn to honoring both the light in the darkness, and the …