Cynthia Bourgeault Commenting on Kabir Helminski’s Living Presence – chapter 7 – “Voluntary Attention”

As we celebrate this season of mystery, and at the end of a year which seems to have dissolved into tragic chaos, it is good to reaffirm the spiritual reality in which we journey. Here are words from Cynthia Bourgeault’s Sounds True Audio Learning Course “Encountering the Wisdom Jesus,” 2005 in which she calls us back to the heart of the spiritual life.

The horror of Friday, December 14, 2012 stands as yet one more reminder, if we need reminding, that there are forces at work in the world over which we have no control. Terrible things happen to people who have done nothing to deserve the devastation that has invaded their lives.

This poem was written in honor of Reverend Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal priest and mystic… Original posting on Becky’s blog . On the last day of a week-long Wisdom School with Cynthia in Valle Crucis, North Carolina, we celebrated the Eucharist in an apple barn. Our time in Wisdom School was modeled after the Benedictine Monastic order, and we spent our days praying and working alone and together and honoring the sacred silence in the evenings. The retreat center at Valle

The Wisdom School with Cynthia Bourgeault was an experience I will be integrating for the rest of my life. While I can’t begin to articulate the full scope of the spiritual terrain traversed during the week spent with her and others from around the country, I do want to share the framework for the week that proved so valuable.

An interview with Cynthia Bourgeault by Keely Bays, a teacher and devoted practicioner of the contemplative path in Victoria, BC.

You know there’s a buzz out there when 100 emails come into your box all bearing identical links to the New York Times article responsible for the stir. I click on the link and voilà! There before me is a photo of a small papyrus fragment from the fourth century and distinguished Harvard scholar Karen King explaining how this recently recovered and certified authentic Coptic fragment unmistakably has Jesus referring to Mary Magdalene as “my wife.”

Seven years ago this month, Brother Roger, beloved founder of the Taizé Community, was slain during community prayer by a mentally disturbed assailant. He was ninety years old. The attack, witnessed by thousands of worshippers (many of them teenagers), shocked and saddened the world.

We are told that we have to balance our budget; whether in Washington or at home. On the other hand, we are also told to love your neighbor as yourself. Which self? The budget-balancing self? The self-preserving self? How many would risk safety to help others? Who would give all to the needy?

This post comes to alert you to an extraordinary learning opportunity, which I hope you will find as exciting as I do. Richard Rohr, James Finley, and I are teaming up as core faculty for what Richard is calling his “Living School”, a two-year program of cognitive learning and spiritual formation in the best of the Christian mystical tradition.

I thought you might be interested in this unique link, which will lead you to Marty Schmidt’s blog account of our Assisi teaching.

A reflection by Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault on St. Brenan, as she acquires a new icon of the saint and looks back on its meaning throughout her life. St. Brenan has a special place in our society, as our first logo, and continues to be a part of our organization today.

I have come to see that our yearning for intimacy is the way in which we human beings show ourselves to be most profoundly made in the image of God. Too often our pictures of God distort this essential point.

We long for that more than anything, don’t we? – that feeling of absolute security and safety in God. We long for it in this world and hope for it in the next. We long for the deep inner knowing that, as Lady Julian of Norwich says, “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well”: to know that everything is going to be all right.

Wake up! The season of Lent is like an alarm clock that starts ringing on Ash Wednesday. As we journey through its forty days, we intend to become more and more awake, more and more conscious, more and more alive. Our hope is to be as fully present as we can be for the feast of Easter, the great celebration of the Life That Never Goes Away revealed in the Risen Jesus!

In Darlene Franz’s workshop on Sacred Chant here in Victoria last November 19th, she suggested something that made a deep impression on me. And for the life of me, I couldn’t pull it back, I couldn’t remember it. I could only feel it. Until… I read the above excerpt in the devotional God Calling last month.

Two weeks into this winter hermit adventure, and I’ve already pretty much lost track of what day of the week this is, so at the moment I’m even more clueless than usual about when Ash Wednesday will arrive. Is it next week or the one following?

Well, the long-awaited time has at last arrived! After more than ten years in the planning and ground-laying, I have arrived back on Eagle Island for six weeks of winter solitude. Six weeks!!! I have no official commitments until March 9.

Last October Cynthia received a wholehearted endorsement and reference to her book Mystical Hope in a blog entry by scientist, business executive, and entrepreneur Ricardo Levy. Cynthia was delighted at how profoundly the essence of her book was captured in such an unexpected context, that she suggested we re-post here. So thank you to Ricardo Levy for allowing us to share your insights on this blog page.

Surprise!!! I have a new home. On the Monday before Christmas I slipped off of Eagle Island in the trough between two storms, and early that afternoon closed on a little house in Stonington, Maine, a picturesque little fishing village about five miles from Eagle. It will serve as the staging platform for my hermit times out on the island, and for my travels and local teaching during the other seasons of my life.