contemplation

Lerita Coleman Brown’s health journey drew her to the contemplative path. She taught me to listen with my whole self.

Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer–winning novel speaks unflinchingly of God, grace, sacred luminosity, and humility. This reads a lot differently now than it did 20 years ago.

Rosalind Brown’s debut novel could be understood as a midrash on Montaigne’s metaphor of the mind as runaway horse.

The contemplative life is about getting closer to reality, not retreating from it.

The creator of Black Liturgies has written a best-selling book about finding the sacred in her own skin.

My students and I are finding our way into the world again with Evagrius, Teresa of Ávila, and Howard Thurman.

The overlooked women of the Hebrew Bible can help us to see the overlooked people in our lives.

The author of God is a Black Woman went in search of the Black Madonnas.

Mysticism is an orientation to life.

"Is there a loving way to call people in, not out?"

Who do I pay attention to who may be prophetically controversial today?

“When I devalue you, I lose myself."

How do I replenish myself so that I can do what God has called me to do?

"The word ‘contemplative’ at this moment is a word that says ‘privilege.’ It means that you have time, and most people don’t have time.” 

I tried it—and I began to experience God in places other than my head.

“Every time I look in the eyes of the young people out there on the streets standing up, speaking up, I see mystics. I do.”

“Breath is how I bring myself back to God. My breath is my sacred word.”

"I hope that we will abandon this idea that mysticism only happens to special people."

"Understanding how racism really, really works, and seeing it as not just a social justice issue but a theological imperative, means that we have to talk about it and work on it all the time.”

“Practicing to be a contemplative," says Zen priest Sensei Zenju, "you’re learning to be embodied and to be boundless at the same time.”