Contemplify

Birthdays are akin to over-excited neighbors. You either appreciate their intrusions or avoid them like Homer Simpson does Ned Flanders. I treat birthdays like Flanders. I love a good party, cake, and sing-song version of 'Happy Birthday', but I am slow to allow the spotlight to turn squarely onto my face. A strange confession for a guy with a podcast. But I do love the birthday questions...

"Many poets feel that they know the natural world, Todd Davis has absorbed this world fully into his heart and mind. He is a fine, rare poet." - Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall

"Although Manning has been lauded throughout the country for his work — garnering accolades from some of the major poets of our time, like W.S. Merwin, in addition to the numerous awards he has received — he has found his place in this literary life, wearing it now as effortlessly as the patterned chambray shirts he favors. He is a man of the people, intent on bringing poetry and scenes of rural b...

"In that larger tradition of transcendent art, if we let them into our hearts, these new poems from Jericho Brown will awe and unsettle us." - Frederick Speers, New York Journal of Books

I hoped for some last gesture beyond a handshake, writes Chris Dombrowski in Ragged Anthem , a soulful book of longing that is as comic as it is reflective. These poems sing of humankind in need of something it can only seem to get from the natural world, and of how we won t get it until we begin to understand ourselves as natural as any tree or river. Or as Dombrowski himself says, Again / I took...

"Chris Dombrowski has proven himself to be among the best poets of his generation. As one of those readers who admired and enjoyed his first two books — better put, who has gone to the poems for spiritual sustenance, for wisdom, and for the magic of being transported to the landscapes where the poet makes his life—I'm happy to report that Ragged Anthem continues to sing those essential songs in be...

This series will introduce you to two poets who help me circle the mystery: Chris Dombrowski and Jericho Brown. My hope is that through these conversations you'll get a taste of poetry as a contemplative gateway. Poetry has played that role for me as a contemplative practice; seeing reality from an angle that I had not yet noticed. Clear enough to see and yet cloudy enough to draw me closer, to en...

This final episode of the Life of a Day series is all about you. It is about offering a reframing of your day with a new way of seeing, a new way of showing up as a contemplative in the world.

"The church is near,  but the road is icy. The bar is far away,  but I will walk carefully." — Russian proverb I raise this frosty pint in your direction for  this fifth installment of the Life of the Day series here on Contemplify where I'll be exploring my interpretation of the divine hour called 'Compline'.

'There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes.'  -  Thich Nhat Hanh My intention here is to be present at hand to the dish in my hand. Perhaps we'll strike gold today and I'll communicate some semblance of that in this fourth installment of the Life of the Day series here on Con...

"Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much." - Ralph Waldo Emerson This is the third jaunt of the Life of the Day series here on Contemplify.

My old pal Thomas Merton wrote, '[Contemplation] can be suggested by words, by symbols, but in the very moment of trying to indicate what it knows the contemplative mind takes back what it has said, and denies what it has affirmed.' So...how do I talk about contemplation then? Briefly. My intention here is to grasp at words that give shape to the formless abiding, even if only for a moment. If we...

My intention here is to kick off the Life of a Day series in grand style, with coffee. This is the first installment of the Life of the Day series here on Contemplify, which is  the reimagining of the Divine Office into my own personal reflective interpretations as a contemplative in the world. The intention is to mark each of the Hours but in a form very different from their regular practice behi...

How does contemplation appear in the life of your day? I've heard from many of you that this question lingers as you listen to the contemplative echo calling you in your daily life. My hope is that this series will help you answer that question for yourself.

This episode came to life a month before my newborn son. Inspired by friends, poets and writers I mused over the words to offer my son as he packed up his belongings from the dark warmth of the womb and worked his way into the shivering light of humanity. Finally, I put ink to paper. Once complete, the following letter laid in waiting alongside the clutter of discarded receipts and grocery lists....

"One of the foremost outsider artists in modern folk." - The New Yorker The first time I ever heard the music of Dan Reeder was when someone sent me a link to the video of ' The Work Song ' (NSFW). Once I heard it, I had to find out who this guy was. I found out that his story is even more interesting than that song. I've been trying to set up this conversation with Dan for years, it took the kind...

"Phileena writes here with such simple clarity—and easy readability—because she knows she does not need to prove, convict, or defend anything. Mindful Silence contains not just her wisdom but the spiritual wisdom of the ages that is again standing the test of time and showing itself in the fruits of incarnational holiness. It is the great tradition of action and contemplation again showing itself....

Theodore Richards latest work's A Letter to My Daughters: Remembering the Lost Dimension and the Texture of Life . Theodore Richards is a philosopher, poet and novelist. He has won numerous awards for his writing, most recently winning the Nautilus Book Award for his book The Great Re-imagining: Spirituality in an Age of Apocalypse . As the founder of The Chicago Wisdom Project , editor of the onl...

I love the kinship one can feel with a poet, author, or musician. The right song or poem can track you down and settle into the liturgy of your life. I count myself lucky to have had that experience too many times to count. I try to keep my ears open enough so artistic expressions can tunnel their way from my ears down to my heart and gut. It was a lovely New Mexican Fall day when one of my favori...

"In Distant Neighbors , both Berry and Snyder come across as honest and open-hearted explorers. There is an overall sense that they possess a deep and questing wisdom, hard earned through land work, travel, writing, and spiritual exploration. There is no rushing, no hectoring, and no grand gestures between these two, just an ever-deepening inquiry into what makes a good life and how to live it, ev...

"Tessa said something that completely change my path and my life. She said that 'falling in love with life was the first step on the a mystical path.'" - Adam Bucko I first met Tessa Bielecki as I was exiting a port-a-potty. Let me explain. A few years back, I was at an arts and spirituality festival. As I departed a port-a-potty, I made a crack about it being a cramped prayer cell (or some such n...

Famed contemplative hermit Thomas Merton wrote in his journal in the mid 1960s, 'Should a hermit like Bob Dylan? He means at least as much to me as some of the new liturgy, perhaps in some ways more. I want to know the guy. I want him to come here, and I want him to see one of my poems.'(p. 107) And after hearing Dylan's album Blonde on Blonde , Merton pronounced, "One does not get 'curious' about...

The first time I hung out with songwriter extraordinaire Del Barber was back in 2005 when he drove me from Calgary, Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba. I fell asleep almost immediately after he turned the ignition, waking hours later confused and unsure which Canadian prairies we were in the middle of. Del told me I snored. I apologized. He said he didn't mind. The only other conversation I remember fr...

"This bold recovery of a long-forgotten path to prayer, expertly situated in its historical context and made accessible for modern-day believers, makes for absolutely fascinating reading--for the devout and doubtful alike." - James Martin, SJ, author of  Jesus: A Pilgrimage Imagine a wheel, a wheel with nesting concentric circles within it. Each circle holding the sacred text and ancient contempla...

'What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe.' These 3 sentences come from my self-adopted contemplative grandfather, Thomas Merton. They ring so true for me that they were the basis for my thesis paper in graduate school. Why? Well, for me, they represent an embodied response to one of my essential life questions -  how does contemplation intersect with day-to-day life? So ther...