Tag Archives: Barbara Holmes
Kenosis: Letting Go
Contemplation: Week 2 Kenosis: Letting Go Friday, December 21, 2018 [Contemplative] practices beckon earthbound bodies toward an expanded receptivity to holiness. . . . Receptivity is not a cognitive exercise but rather the involvement of intellect and senses in a spiritual reunion and oneness with God. . . . [The] contemplative moment is a spiritual… Continue Reading Kenosis: Letting Go
Connecting to the Eternal
Contemplation: Week 2 Connecting to the Eternal Wednesday, December 19, 2018 Barbara Holmes, one of our CONSPIRE 2018 teachers, writes about the beautiful diversity of contemplative practices as paths toward the source of our being: Although Africana and European Christians share a common contemplative history, there are specific differences in expectation and practice. . .… Continue Reading Connecting to the Eternal
Contemplation: Week 1 Summary
Contemplation: Week 1 Summary: Sunday, December 9-Friday, December 14, 2018 Contemplation is an exercise in openness, in keeping all three spaces open: heart, mind, and body. (Sunday) Contemplation is the highest expression of [human] intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. —Thomas Merton… Continue Reading Contemplation: Week 1 Summary
Reflecting on CONSPIRE 2018
LS Alumni and Students Reflect on CONSPIRE 2018 Mark Longhurst (’15) CONSPIRE 2018 dared to open a thematic gateway to challenging terrain that few spirituality conferences tread: the path of descent as the path of transformation. As Fr. Richard Rohr said in his conference video invitation, “Failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers.… Continue Reading Reflecting on CONSPIRE 2018
Book Review: Race and the Cosmos
Book Review Race and the Cosmos: An Invitation to View the World Differently by Barbara Holmes Byron McMillan (’19) There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. —Machiavelli Race and the… Continue Reading Book Review: Race and the Cosmos
Alumni Newsletter — November 2018
A Note from the Editor Dear Living School Alumni, Most of us, having been “sent” by the Living School, are doing the work of integrating action and contemplation. Fr. Richard Rohr tells us “and” is the most important word in the Center’s name. One way to describe Living School alumni is those who are “sent”… Continue Reading Alumni Newsletter — November 2018
Rupture of the Ordinary
Suffering: Week 1 Rupture of the Ordinary Friday, October 19, 2018 Barbara Holmes paints a moving portrait of how suffering transformed kidnapped peoples from different African tribes and languages into a kind of contemplative community, beginning with their journey across the Atlantic. Captured Africans were spooned together lying on their sides in ships that pitched… Continue Reading Rupture of the Ordinary
Western Christianity: Weekly Summary
Western Christianity Summary: Sunday, September 16-Friday, September 21, 2018 To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter. —Archbishop Rowan Williams (Sunday) Meditation [was] not a newfangled innovation, let alone the grafting onto Christianity of an Eastern practice, but… Continue Reading Western Christianity: Weekly Summary
Crisis Contemplation
Western Christianity Crisis Contemplation Friday, September 21, 2018 As I mentioned earlier this week, Western Christianity neglected the systematic instruction of contemplative practice for hundreds of years. Yet many people naturally grow into nondual consciousness through great suffering or great love. Barbara Holmes suggests that “crisis contemplation” arose out of necessity during the “Middle Passage”… Continue Reading Crisis Contemplation
Christianity in the Desert
Early Christianity Christianity in the Desert Wednesday, September 5, 2018 For too long, little or no honor has been paid to those who have laid the foundations in Africa for the preservation of Christianity throughout the world. . . . [T]he roots and headwaters for this monastic flourishing had their source in African soil. Unfortunately,… Continue Reading Christianity in the Desert
