A Blog by LeRoy Friesen
O Lover, What, if anything, is distinctively “Christian” about Christian mysticism? If the mystical impulse can appear to have greater prevalence in interspiritual venues than in many explicitly Christian contexts, what is the role...
O Lover, These winter days both cry out for, and repeatedly fail to provide adequate expressions of, lamentation. The leadened darkness leaves my spirit torn, my agency on the edge of paralysis: on the...
[Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2024.] O Lover, In the above work the Benedictine Bourgeault, drawing on the the work of the Trappist Keating in...
[“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—A time to give birth and a time to die. . . .” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,2)] O Lover, I...
[“As the deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants after You, O God. . . .my entire being longs for You; my body pines for You. . . .” (Ps 42:1 &...
[John Welch, OCarm, When Gods Die: An Introduction to John of the Cross. NY: Paulist Press, 1990.] [In 1991 Thomas Keating, OCSO, sixty-eight and on the threshold of what Juan de la Cruz called...
[Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2024.] O Lover, In her splendid tracing of the last years of the spiritual journey of Thomas Keating, OCSO (1923-2018),...
O Lover, Sunday last was the the Feast of the Epiphany, the final day of Christmastide. The liturgical meaning of epiphany is rich indeed: disclosure, revelation, manifestation, showcasing. Praise be to You: initiator, agent,...
O Lover, For us of the Jesus tradition both courage and wisdom are required as we approach the cultural phenomenon called “Christmas.” Why? More than any other, this feast is an amalgam of accretions...
O Lover, We humans are denizens of the cosmos, embodieds whose sole venue is where form, sense, and thought are operative. It is in this life, this finite setting, in which we find ourselves....