2024 Year in Review
Radical Resilience
Welcome
How do we engage with a world on fire — without burning up or burning out? For nearly 40 years, the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) has supported spiritual seekers to practice loving action in response to a hurting world. This is the work of Radical Resilience: nurturing the inner flame that allows us to remain present, compassionate, and connected amid profound individual and collective suffering.
In 2024, we explored how the work of Radical Resilience invites us to tend the flame within and embrace the refining fire of Divine Love. This daily practice guides us through the pain towards greater wholeness and solidarity with the world.
This Year in Review will share moments of learning, growth, and impact across CAC’s programs, along with a snapshot of our financial and operational stewardship, as we enter the fifth year of our transition from a founder-led organization to a mission-led one.
Your support makes it possible to accompany individuals on the path of transformation — to hold the whole of our collective experience with resilience. We are deeply grateful for your partnership and trust. Thank you for walking this journey of transformation with us.
Peace and every good,
Michael Poffenberger
Executive Director
Center for Action and Contemplation
“Resilience is really a secular word for what religion was trying to say with the word faith. Without a certain ability to let go, to trust, to allow, we won’t get to any new place.”
—Fr. Richard Rohr, CAC Founder
Michael Poffenberger, CAC Executive Director, in conversation with Fr. Richard Rohr.
CAC Dean of Faculty Brian McLaren introduces Radical Resilience as the 2024 Daily Meditations theme.
Our Mission
At the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), we believe that transformation begins with learning to see and love the world as it is. Through everyday Christian contemplative wisdom and practices, we support those seeking healing — within themselves and in the world around them.
Founded by Richard Rohr in 1987, the CAC’s work is rooted in a long tradition of Christian contemplation but presented in ways that meet people where they are today. Whether through teachings, practices, or community engagement, our goal is to help people live out this wisdom in practical ways — so that they become instruments of love, peacemaking, and positive change in the world.
To carry this vision into daily life, the CAC offers a wide range of programs and resources that accompany people on the contemplative path of transformation. From Daily Meditations and CAC Publishing to podcasts, events, online education, the Living School, and movement partnerships, these offerings extend the reach of contemplative wisdom to spiritual seekers around the world — providing steady support for both personal practice and collective change.
“Going through the process of aging has been unsettling for me. But each day, as I read the CAC Daily Meditations, I am reminded that hope emerges through despair, joy arises even within grief, and love can overcome hatred and violence. I am learning to be more resilient.”
—Debbie J., Daily Meditations subscriber
Print publication of ONEING.
Our Programs
Daily Meditations and CAC Publishing
Rooted in the Christian contemplative traditions, the Daily Meditations email series offer reflections from Richard Rohr, CAC faculty, and guest teachers to help readers deepen spiritual practice and embody compassion in the world. In 2024, we shared 365 Daily Meditations with our global community of 396,963 readers.
To expand on the theme, we shared quarterly videos with CAC faculty exploring Radical Resilience. CAC Faculty James Finley’s “Tending the Fire Within” video was watched by 63,000 people. We introduced an ongoing quarterly author interview series with writers and speakers whose work has inspired Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, watched by a total of 100,000 people.
CAC Publications also supported the production of four issues of The Mendicant and two issues of our biannual journal, “ONEING: Art and Spirituality” and “ONEING: The Path of the Prophet.”
The CAC community grieved the loss of beloved faculty member Dr. Barbara Holmes, who passed away in October 2024. We honored her work in the Daily Meditations with a special week of meditations that covered the breadth and depth of her wisdom. Dr. Holmes’ last recorded video for the Daily Meditations was prescient as she reflected on her illness and “Dancing with the Divine Fire.”
We invite you to explore three of the most read Daily Meditations in 2024 from our website and email.
A Moment of Divine Fire
From time to time the divine grants itself with this kind of fire, a quiet luminosity that has great depth and intimacy to it.
An Every Day Mystic
In honoring Dr. B, may we continue the struggle she so passionately embraced—the struggle for justice, the healing of the human spirit, and the call to radical creativity. May her “intelligence on fire” continue to burn within us as we move forward in love, action, and contemplation.
To Live Is To Change
We humans as a species are not attracted to change. We like things the way we like things. And yet the first words out of Jesus’ mouth tell us that he’s come to give us a philosophy of change: “Repent,”—change your mind—“for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2).
“After recently leaving an abusive marriage, I find myself discovering hidden treasures within my soul. Listening to the Turning to The Mystics podcast, Jim said, ‘God meets you exactly where you are.’ His words brought me to tears. I see my life now as a rebellious act of radical resilience.”
—Nancy P., Podcast listener
Participants gather at the Students of Life Conference.
CAC Podcasts
CAC’s podcasts serve as a gateway to the contemplative path by reaching new listeners around the world. Each series offers spiritual insights and practical guidance to nurture transformation — for us as individuals and for the wider world.
In 2024, we launched the first full season of Everything Belongs, a podcast devoted to carrying forward the teachings of Richard Rohr. We also wove in the poetry and stories of our community of listeners in a new way in a special episode of Turning to the Mystics. We mourned the passing of Dr. Barbara Holmes, beloved teacher and co-host of The Cosmic We, whose wisdom continues to inspire our podcasts and teachings at CAC podcasts and teachings at CAC.
Collectively, our podcasts had 3.1 million downloads in 2024 and were accessed by individuals across 196 countries and territories worldwide.
We invite you to listen to our favorite episodes from 2024:
Everything Belongs
The Two Halves of Life With Brené Brown
In this episode, we’re joined by Brené Brown to kick off our chapter-by-chapter exploration, starting with Chapter 1: “The Two Halves of Life.” Together, with Richard Rohr and CAC Staff, they explore the concept of the two halves of life and how Brené has navigated these teachings from the context of her own lived experience, both personally and professionally. We also talk about the brand-new foreword, which Brené wrote for the new edition of “Falling Upward.” But first, Mike and Paul begin the episode at Richard’s hermitage to hear his reflections on the first chapter a decade after he originally wrote it.
Learning How to See
Seeing Nature as a Poet with Drew Jackson and Pádraig Ó Tuama
In this episode, Brian McLaren explores the power of poetry to help us understand and grieve for the natural world while also appreciating its beauty. He talks with poets Pádraig Ó Tuama and Drew Jackson about the importance of seeing nature holistically, and how poetry can help us grapple with the tension between destruction and renewal. The episode explores how poems can inspire action and change and encourages you, the listener, to write your own poems, especially haiku, to practice seeing nature differently.
Turning to the Mystics
BONUS: Stories of Pilgrimage
In this very special episode, our listeners share their stories of pilgrimage as Jim and Kirsten relate each story to a specific theme found in “The Way of a Pilgrim.”
The Cosmic We
Sacred Activism With Alison McCrary
On this episode, Dr. Donny Bryant and Dr. Barbara Holmes are joined in conversation by Alison McCrary, exploring the very real impact of how we listen, speak, and show up in the world.
“I came into this course with a dire cancer diagnosis; I wasn’t sure I would survive the year. I began the course focusing on dying; I am leaving the course focusing on living, however long that is. Learning how to hold the living and the dying together. Living School indeed. I am forever grateful.”
—Sandra B., Living School student
Left to right, Jennifer Tompos, James Finley, Richard Rohr, and Mike Petrow present at the 2024 Students of Life Conference.
The Living School
In 2024, we began testing our new Living School course, the Essentials of Engaged Contemplation. This new offering is designed to introduce core teachings and practices from the Christian contemplative traditions, provide tools to support spiritual transformation and inspire loving engagement with the world. Through a rhythm of reading, listening, reflection, practice, and peer connection in small groups, students explore what it means to live as engaged contemplatives today. Led by trained guides and supported by like-valued community, participants are encouraged to integrate the path of transformation into their daily lives.
One highlight was the successful launch of a new training program for course guides to facilitate student learning in small groups, helping students to integrate the content into their lives. We learned that as students engaged more deeply in the guided discussions, practice, reflection, and small- and large-group community gatherings, they were more likely to describe their experience as “transformative.”
Our test course comprised 452 students and more than 30 diverse faculty and staff voices. Other things we learned included:
- 90.3% of students felt supported in establishing a daily or routine spiritual practice.
- 95.9% of students grew their understanding of the Christian contemplative mystical traditions.
- 97.3% of students agreed or strongly agreed they would recommend the course to a friend.
One student wrote about the course’s impact:
“Only this: how truly grateful I am to the CAC for creating this course and allowing me to participate. It has exceeded all my expectations, caused me to grow spiritually, taught me in ways I did not know I needed to be taught, and prepared me to now enter the final weeks of this year in deep discernment to discover how the Divine may choose to use me to best serve the healing of the world in 2025.
Although I am a life-professed Franciscan friar and am already serving and ministering in many ways, my studies here with God’s help have helped me to understand that the world is now my monastery and that every single person God places in front of me-anyone-anytime-anyplace have become my congregation to serve.”
Following this year of learning, we launched the full version of the course in May 2025. Registration quickly filled, and the year-long course began on September 22, 2025.
“I have received CAC’s daily emails for years, but the Virtual Sit helped me so much more than simply reading and meditating on my own — on the seventh anniversary of my husband’s death, to sit with people all over the world in a deep and meaningful way gave me such comfort. The Virtual group felt like a holding space to connect with God.”
—Janice S., Virtual Sit participant
CAC Students of Life Fall Conference.
CAC Events and Virtual Gatherings
CAC’s events offer attendees the opportunity to gather, reflect, and grow together. Through in-person and online events, we create spaces for connection and shared learning to explore the wisdom of the Christian contemplative traditions. We started 2024 with Courage and Resilience, celebrating the launch of Brian McLaren’s book “Life After Doom.” The event brought together 1,900 attendees online and invited us into deeper contemplation and compassionate action around the crisis facing our planet. We also hosted free Virtual Sit Meditations each Friday during Lent.
A landmark moment came with hosting the Students of Life fall conference — our first hybrid conference since the COVID-19 pandemic. With 476 current and former Living School participants and CAC partners on-site and 460 individuals joining online, this event was an invitation to explore how our inner spiritual work — rooted in the Christian contemplative tradition — can become meaningful action in the world. The event served as a joyful introduction to our new faculty, Carmen Acevedo Butcher and Randy Woodley. We look forward to hosting our 2025 Fall Conference, ReVision: What Do We Do With Christianity?, online and in-person in Albuquerque in October.
We closed the year with the third annual Turning to the Mystics Online Retreat, welcoming 467 participants into a collective space of silence, wisdom, and spiritual growth. Through this year, we heard from participants the value of gathering with others to deepen relationships and experiential wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition.
Led by Center for Action and Contemplation faculty and staff, Virtual Sit Meditations offered our global CAC community a time of shared reflection, stillness, and insight.
“We are now attempting to bear witness to the sweet secret of experiential salvation in which the torn and ragged edges of our wounded and wayward hearts are experienced as… the opening through which the gentle light of God’s merciful love shines into our lives.”
—James Finley, CAC Faculty
Practitioner in sitting practice.
Online Education
CAC’s online courses offer practical, accessible pathways into the Christian contemplative traditions. Through guided teachings and spiritual practices, students gain tools for personal transformation and meaningful engagement with the world.
In 2024, CAC offered online courses to over 7,000 registrants. The most popular courses last year were “Breathing Underwater,” “Immortal Diamond,” “Interior Castle,” and “Falling Upward: Life as a Spiritual Journey.”
CAC’s online courses reach thousands of people and have historically offered synchronous access to online learning content. One student of CAC’s “Falling Upward: Life as a Spiritual Journey” course writes:
“As this course comes to a close, I find myself mourning its end. Although I’ve taken several courses through the CAC before, never has one resonated so deeply with me or taught me so much about myself. I feel like I truly have a road map of guidance.”
One of the most significant successes for CAC’s online courses in 2024 happened behind the scenes. As a result of our assessments and lessons learned while redesigning the Living School’s Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, CAC’s new and refined online courses will now be offered asynchronously on a new community learning platform, CAC Connect.
CAC Connect is designed for spiritual seekers and lifelong learners. It supports those seeking transformation and a deeper connection to contemplative practices. Through CAC Connect, students can explore enriching content and engage with like-valued individuals in dedicated spaces, build meaningful relationships within a supportive community and foster both personal growth and a commitment to a more just and connected world.
“The early Franciscan movement teaches us that giving our resources to those in need is not enough. We must also engage in transforming unjust structures and systems.”
—Elizabeth Garlow, Co-Founder of Francesco Collaborative, CAC Movement Partner
Brian McLaren and Jennifer Tompos present at the 2024 Students of Life Conference.
Movement Partnerships
As we support individuals on the path to transformation, CAC has continued to deepen our relationships with like-minded organizations. We recognize that our mission — to introduce Christian contemplative wisdom and practices that support transformation and inspire loving action — cannot be carried out by one organization alone. Collaboration is central to living into our mission.
In 2024, these collaborations included Happy Givers, Journey Home, Center for Spiritual Imagination, Laudato Si Movement, Shalem Institute, and Franciscan Action Network. Our Movement Partnerships reflect a diverse tapestry of changemakers — those accompanying individuals on paths of transformation through education, meeting urgent needs through direct service, advocating for systems change, and supporting communities living into alternative values.
Reflecting on CAC’s Financial Philosophy, Fr. Richard Rohr shared, “We should do something fruitful with the CAC’s resources instead of opting for no risk and ultimate security. The CAC should invest in growing people and organizations that are helping the world. We should be committed to leaders and projects that grow people for that task.” From this vision, we’ve been able to partner with and offer financial support to organizations that share CAC’s values in keeping with Fr. Richard’s vision — that we would not exist solely for our own benefit but be of service to a broader contemplative movement.
In 2024, we increased our programmatic collaboration with Movement Partners. While we continued to feature partner’s voices in “We Conspire,” we also had partners teach about loving action in the new Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, as well as several Movement Partner-led breakout rooms at the Students of Life fall conference.
Fr. Adam Bucko joins CAC’s Digital and Print Publications Manager, Mark Longhurst, to discuss the role radical resilience plays in our lives. Fr. Bucko is the Co-founder and Director of the Center for Spiritual Imagination, a CAC Movement Partner.
“Our current circumstances require resilience and the steadfast belief that joy is a healing inner event and a spiritual practice… The joy spoken of in Holy Scripture is accessible, but also has a certain ‘beyondness’ to it: The world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away.”
—Dr. Barbara Holmes, CAC Faculty Emeritus
CAC’s Stillpoint Campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
CAC Operations
In 2024, CAC made meaningful progress in simplifying and strengthening the way we utilize technology to serve our community and collaborate internally. With a focus on clarity and accessibility, we enhanced our digital ecosystem — launching a unified bookstore experience and new online learning platform, CAC Connect. Our improved data and security practices ensure that as we grow, we do so with integrity and alignment with our values.
We’ve also seen substantial growth by helping seekers discover our content more easily online. We’ve done some quiet behind-the-scenes work to make it easier for people to discover our large library of free resources, and we’ve seen more people finding their way into meaningful encounters with the contemplative tradition on our website. Accessibility upgrades now make our offerings more inclusive to web visitors.
CAC Staff Team.
“We tend the fires without by nurturing the fire within. The steady flame of Divine Presence burns as we care for the wounds that we have long denied and embody compassion with those who most need it. Radical Resilience becomes the posture of faith.”
—Mark Longhurst, CAC Print and Digital Publications Manager
CAC Staff Team
In 2024, CAC created more efficient recruitment and onboarding processes, and welcomed 12 new colleagues — including our new Chief Financial Officer, Elliot Ling. We also promoted Drew Jackson, Managing Director of Formation, to the Executive Leadership Team. These efforts strengthened our team retention, employee engagement, and a culture of support and belonging.
This year, we also completed a clear, accessible review and rollout of our Employee Handbook and key policies, ensuring alignment with organizational best practices while keeping our processes simple and easy to navigate. Our new sabbatical, compassionate bereavement, and parental leave policies reflect our commitment to care, equity, and solidarity. We expanded performance management tools and offered practical resources to support staff development in every role.
This year’s key learnings highlight the importance of ongoing manager development and transparency as we grow as an organization. Looking ahead, we’re committed to refining our processes and exploring new ways to nurture a just, connected, and thriving workplace that aligns with our teachings and values while supporting the well-being and growth of our staff.
“Money and financial resources can bring people together in service of justice for all people when offered in flow of the Spirit.”
—Rose Feerick, Co-Director of Wisdom & Money, CAC Movement Partner
CAC’s Main Campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
CAC 2024 Financials
At CAC, we believe that our financial practices serve as a mirror to the heart of our organization. Our financial philosophy seeks to align our financial practices with our deepest values, so that all financial transactions can become opportunities for deeper relationship and further our mission.
As a donor-supported organization, we are grateful for the generosity and support of the 32,249 people who gave to CAC this past year, including 5,749 first-time donors. With an average gift of $81.60, CAC’s generous supporters gave a total of $10.2M, a nearly 25% increase from 2023, to fund CAC’s programs, expand scholarships, and invest in critical technology and infrastructure to introduce more people to the wisdom and practices of the Christian contemplative traditions. Our hope is that all gifts are given freely and joyfully in a way that nurtures both the giver and the receiver.
In May 2024, CAC launched the Circle of Solidarity, a community of people committed to supporting CAC’s strategic goals by making a significant annual gift. We also saw a 19% increase in the number of people making monthly gifts as a member of the CAC’s monthly giving community, the Bonaventure Circle of Support. We are especially grateful for the 2,535 individuals who joined the Bonaventure Circle this past year.
As a result of the generosity of our community, we were able to expand our financial assistance to increase accessibility to our programs. We’re committed to reducing financial barriers to participation, so that our shared journey toward transformation remains open to all, not just the few. 10,494 individuals participated in our tuition-based programs, and 1,899 participants leveraged scholarship funds totaling $865,060. This is a 70% increase in scholarship funds granted compared to the prior year.
In 2024, an independent audit once again issued a clean, unqualified opinion, affirming the integrity of our financial controls and the accuracy of our financial statements.
We are grateful for the trust of our supporters and generous donor community. Please visit Stewarding our Financial Resources to review our financial documents and financial philosophy in more depth.
2025 and Beyond
The Center for Action and Contemplation’s (CAC) mission is to introduce Christian contemplative wisdom and practices that support transformation and inspire loving action. We see access as essential to that mission — ensuring that seekers from all walks of life can engage the wisdom that calls us toward healing, wholeness, and deepening love. That’s why we’re committed to reducing financial barriers to participation, so that our shared journey toward transformation remains open to all, not just the few.
With your support we hope to continue:
- Expanding our core offerings to include new online courses, podcasts, publications, and events.
- Providing scholarships and pay-what-you-can pricing to ensure all have the opportunity to access this transformative wisdom.
- Expanding and diversifying the teachers that we partner with to build on Richard Rohr’s lineage and legacy.
- Increasing our impact through new technology to improve quality, enhance user experience, and expand the reach of our programs.
Stay Connected
To stay informed about program updates and other news, sign up for our monthly News from New Mexico newsletter. You can also send us a message and stay connected on social media via our Contact Us page.
Thank you for being a vital part of CAC’s community in 2024 and for your care, trust, and partnership in the years to come.
“When we live inside the Really Real, we live in a ‘threshold space’ between this world and the next. We learn how to live between heaven and earth, one foot in both, holding them precious together.”
—Richard Rohr, CAC Founder
Fr. Richard Rohr.
Support
The work of the Center for Action and Contemplation is possible thanks to the generosity of friends and supporters like you. By introducing seekers to the Christian path of transformation, we believe that our shared work can become a catalyzing force for a change of consciousness within Christianity and each of our communities.
Your support helps bring this wisdom to those who seek it, nurturing a movement of healing, justice, and renewal. Together, we transform our beautiful but suffering world — one heart, one life, one moment of awakening at a time.
To support the CAC by making a one-time gift or to join the CAC’s monthly giving community, the Bonaventure Circle of Support, visit cac.org/support.