Reflections

Fr. Bruno Barnhart, former prior of New Camaldoli Monastery, mystic, hermit, and my friend and spiritual father for more than thirty years, is now officially on the other side. He chose the auspicious occasion of the eve of Advent for his transition to the infinite.

Just two years ago, I had never heard of Cynthia Bourgeault. At the age of 26, I was only a fledgling in the meditation world, meeting regularly with a group I had joined while studying at the local university. Through that group, I had the opportunity to go to a retreat on a scholarship.

Father Bruno Barnhart, OSB Cam, has been a friend and spiritual mentor to many of us here in the Pacific Northwest through his close involvement with The Contemplative Society and his deep influence on my own work. Now approaching 85-years-old, Bruno has been struggling over the past few years with chronic health issues and, in the past couple of weeks, things evidently took a serious downturn. I have no information beyond what Prior Cyprian has so honestly and lovingly share

On Canada’s Thanksgiving weekend, Heather Page, president of The Contemplative Society, reflected with gratitude on the past year. Please see her letter to the TCS community re-posted here below.

“Surrender is a conscious embracing of what is. At times, what looks like surrender can be to withdraw from a little bit of your reality – ‘that’s just him, that’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s going to be, we’re never going to be close, live with it.’ That’s not surrender.

In May 2015, Cynthia Bourgeault shared a recent experience of a sudden health problem through the beautiful letter below. Thank you to Wisdom Way of Knowing (formerly Center for Spiritual Resources) for sharing the letter.

“Eucharist” literally means “thanksgiving”: an offering up of praise and gratitude. Only in recent liturgical usage has the term come to be an accepted synonym for the Mass or Holy Communion.

As many of you know, my old cat Lily, faithful travelling companion of these past fifteen years, died last week on my birthday, which happened to fall this year on Friday the thirteenth. It was a wrenching synchronicity, not only because of the coincidence itself, but because at the time of her passing I was three thousand miles away, teaching on the West Coast.

Here’s an unusual New Year’s resolution! I’d like to propose that all of us in the Wisdom network declare 2015 The Year Of Teilhard de Chardin and take on the collective task of getting to know his work better.

As we approach the Fourth Sunday of Advent this logion from the Gospel of Thomas seems particularly poignant. As the days are becoming shorter we look forward to celebrating the incarnation of light and love into this world. But amidst the many distractions and temptations of busy lives it is easy to forget this presence who longs to be known yet never demands.

Beatrice Bruteau—scholar, teacher, interspiritual pioneer, and intrepid explorer of the evolutionary edge of consciousness—quietly departed this earth plane on November 16, 2014, at the age of 84. Her passing exemplified her signature brand of clarity, freedom, and intentionality: traits which for more than five decades have been the hallmarks of her teaching presence among us and which she now bequeaths to us as both a legacy and a continuing invitation.

On November 16 The Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation presented its 2014 Contemplative Voices Award to the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault.

Since my interview with Terry Patten last June, many of you have been clamoring to hear more about my “four voices” method of discernment. It’s a way of listening to myself I developed on my own over the past twenty years or so, based on the idea that there are multiple selves within me, each one with its characteristic slant and agenda.

From my running “missing bag” saga, some of you may have gotten the impression that my recent teaching adventure in Scotland and Ireland was a bit arduous. Not in the least! It was in fact it was one of the most stunning high points of my entire teaching career, if not of my entire life.

In this continuation of my last post, I want to offer a couple of additional examples of my “Four Voices” method at work, along with some further reflections and a bit of fine-tuning. While the overall process tends to unfold along “Law of Three” ley lines, as described in my earlier post, every conversation turns up a slightly different alignment of the players and a slightly different way of weighing the evidence. Here are a couple of variations...

“Jesus’s real purpose in this sacrifice was to wager his own life against his core conviction that love is stronger than death, and that the laying down of self which is the essence of this love leads not to death, but to life.”

On April 17, 2013, as thousands of eager runners rushed past Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver BC for the annual Sun Run, inside listeners sat hushed and still as Cynthia Bourgeault delivered a riveting and powerful  Palm Sunday sermon.

On November 8th 2013, Cynthia Bourgeault provided a presentation on “Jesus and Sacred Wisdom” at the Moravian Seminary Couillard Lectures. This lecture has been video recorded and is available for viewing.

During our ten days as official guests of the Central Monastic Body of Bhutan, we had private audiences with monastic and political leaders (including the director of the Institute for Bhutan Studies, and three of the five Eminences who direct the affairs of the Central Monastic Body.)

When I was thinking about presenting the President’s Report to this year’s AGM the theme that kept coming to me was gratitude. There is so much that I am grateful for and thought beneficial to share.