Latter-day Contemplation

Christopher and Riley talk about the esoteric (inner) and exoteric (outer) experience of religion and finding a balance between the two. On the one hand, there’s holding so tightly to the letter of the word of God that’s the iron rod that we can’t let go long enough to take a step forward in the darkness in faith to walk the path the iron rod is meant to lead us down to the presence of God. On the...

Shiloh, Riley, and Christopher Hurtado all open up space for a conversation about the healing power of mourning. A part of the baptismal covenant is to “mourn with those who mourn” (Mosiah 18:9), but do we really comprehend the incredibly healing power that mourning has on our fellow man? What does “mourning” here even mean? In the Beatitudes, after we empty ourselves and are poor in spirit, we ex...

Riley and Shiloh open up a space to talk about the subject of prayer. We have all been taught the standard posture of praying with our eyes closed, head bowed, arms folded, and kneeling, all while using the proper formula by addressing Heavenly Father by name, expressing gratitude, asking for what we need, and closing in the name of Jesus Christ — all while using the proper “honorific” pronouns. B...

Shiloh and Riley open up on a topic that they have both been thinking and sitting with for a while: worthiness. The scriptures talk about "worthiness" quite a bit, but how do we reconcile a truth that we are "always already being worthy" with the scriptural concept of "unworthiness"? Is "worthiness" a description of our being? Is it a description of what we do? If we can be inherently unworthy of...

Riley and Shiloh open up a conversation about what Thomas Merton calls the True Self and the False Self . The LDS Bible Dictionary defines repentance as "a change of mind, i.e., a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world." Merton observed that so much depends on our idea of God, and what we initially believe about and how we view God says more about our own projection and less abou...

Shiloh and Riley talk on various themes of peace. What part does myth play in both forming our identities and in bringing about peace? Riley and Shiloh use this discussion of myth to dive deeper into an understanding of how the Garden of Eden story is an example of the human journey, as it defines and develops our human experiences that lead us back to experiencing peace through partaking of the l...

Riley and Shiloh talk about the various ways that we, and others, have experienced God. They explore how the preparation for experiencing God is, in itself, an amazing divine experience, as there are multiple ways that each of us partake of the divine gift of sitting with God. While we often talk in terms of "feeling" the Spirit or God, sometimes we experience God in completely unique ways that ar...

Riley and Shiloh talk about being born again as an emptying that is necessary to being filled with all that God has waiting for us to experience. What is waiting for us when we're able to empty ourselves every day? Is there a way to start over, even emptying our very concepts of God to allow the divine to work within us into something new and wondrous every day? The LDS Bible Dictionary's definiti...

Shiloh and Riley talk about the Sermon on the Mount from a variety of perspectives. When we take a primary or solely rationalist approach to scripture, we often unintentionally end up "rationalizing away" the most difficult parts of the Sermon on the Mount that don't seem possible to follow. By taking a more contemplative approach to scripture, is there a way of allowing the scriptures to open up...

Shiloh Logan and Riley Risto open up about their experiences and what led them to starting down a path of Christian contemplation. They talk about their interests in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount and in how the Savior’s teachings have brought them peace in their lives.