Download or read book Joy Unspeakable written by Barbara A. Holmes and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joy Unspeakable focuses on the aspects of the Black church that point beyond particular congregational gatherings toward a mystical and communal spirituality not within the exclusive domain of any denomination. This mystical aspect of the black church is deeply implicated in the well-being of African American people but is not the focus of their intentional reflection. Moreover, its traditions are deeply ensconced within the historical memory of the wider society and can be found in Coltrane's riffs, Malcolm's exhortations, the social activism of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. The research in this book-through oral histories, church records, and written accounts--details not only ways in which contemplative experience is built into African American collective worship but also the legacy of African monasticism, a history of spiritual exemplars, and unique meditative worship practices. A groundbreaking work in its original edition, Joy Unspeakable now appears in a new, revised edition to address the effects of this contemplative tradition on activism and politics and to speak to a new generation of readers and scholars.

Download or read book Contemplative Prayer written by Thomas Merton and published by Image. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this classic text, Thomas Merton offers valuable guidance for prayer. He brings together a wealth of meditative and mystical influences–from John of the Cross to Eastern desert monasticism–to create a spiritual path for today. Most important, he shows how the peace contacted through meditation should not be sought in order to evade the problems of contemporary life, but can instead be directed back out into the world to affect positive change. Contemplative Prayer is one of the most well-known works of spirituality of the last one hundred years, and it is a must-read for all seeking to live a life of purpose in today’s world. In a moving and profound introduction, Thich Nhat Hanh offers his personal recollections of Merton and compares the contemplative traditions of East and West.

Download or read book An Ocean of Light written by Martin Laird and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2018-12-03 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For people drawn to a life of contemplation, the dawning of luminous awareness in a mind full of clutter is deeply liberating. In the third of his best-selling books on Christian contemplative life, Martin Laird turns his attention to those who are well settled in their contemplative practice. An Ocean of Light speaks both to those just entering the contemplative path and to those with a maturing practice of contemplation. Gradually, the practice of contemplation lifts the soul, freeing it from the blockages that introduce confusion into our identity and thus confusion about the mystery we call God. In the course of a lifetime of inner silencing, the flower of awareness emerges: a living realization that we have never been separate from God or from the rest of humanity while we each fully become what each of us is created to be. In contemplation we become so silent before God that the "before" drops away. Those whose lives have led them deeply into the silent land realize this, but not in the way that we realize that the square root of 144 is 12. Laird draws from a wide and diverse range of writers--from St. Augustine, Evagrius Ponticus, and St. Teresa of Avila to David Foster Wallace, Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, and Franz Wright--to ground his insight in an ancient practice and give it a voice in contemporary language. With his characteristic lyricism and gentleness, Laird guides readers through new challenges of contemplative life, such as making ourselves the focus of our own contemplative project; dealing with old pain; transforming the isolation of loneliness and depression into a liberating solidarity with all who suffer; and the danger of using a spiritual practice as a strategy to acquire and control.

Download or read book On the Shore of Contemplation written by Akbar Asad Ali Zadeh and published by . This book was released on 2014-04-27 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is one of the many Islamic publications distributed by Ahlulbayt Organization throughout the world in different languages with the aim of conveying the message of Islam to the people of the world.You may read this book carefully and should you be interested to have further study on such publications you can contact us through www.shia.es Naturally, if we find you to be a keen and energetic reader we shall give you a deserving response in sending you some other publications of this Organization.

Download or read book Queering Contemplation written by Cassidy Hall and published by Broadleaf Books . This book was released on 2024-05-21 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would it mean to queer contemplation? To disentangle contemplative spirituality from heteronormativity, patriarchy, and Eurocentricity, and instead engage with openness, curiosity, and a little weirdness? The world of contemplative Christianity has yielded to the same voices for far too long, many of whom are from centuries before our time, with lives unlike our own, and often from experiences disconnected from marginalization, oppression, and what it feels like to be an outsider. Cassidy Hall, an LGBTQIA+ Christian contemplative scholar and podcast host, takes us on a journey to queer the contemplative tradition.For Hall, queering is not solely about identifying as queer or applying queer theory; it is about what is gained by seeing things differently. "Queer," she says, "is the way I tilt my head to look at the world." As queerness reawakened her own contemplative life, Hall discovered that queering and questioning the tradition allowed her to listen more closely to voices that are queer, marginalized, and oppressed--voices that have long existed but have often been overlooked or silenced. For Hall, that also meant moving differently into contemplation, into silence, into liminality and ritual. In showing us the way, she helps us envision what contemplative faith can look like, what spiritual spaces we can reclaim for welcome--and how queering contemplation, and lifting up queer contemplative voices, frees us to seek the infinite possibility of our own identity and engage our spiritual lives with open hearts and open hands.? Whether you're queer or want to queer your own perspectives, or whether you want to uncover the queerness and queer voices in the contemplative tradition--Hall throws open the doors of contemplative spirituality for all, bringing us to contemplation in very new, sometimes old, but always queer ways.

Download or read book The Other Shore written by Enso and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2024-01-17 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Other Shore is a compilation of poems and verses that can be used for inner contemplation, discussions, and to arrive at something deeper within one’s own being. These poems have come to the author as spontaneous expressions of a flow state. It is not of any particular meter or format, just a natural expression of subjects the author has explored over the course of her life. You may resonate with the verses or may find dissonance. Either ways, it would have served its purpose of creating an inner dialogue. The book aims to make your journey a bit lighter, easier and joyful. We hope that in these pages you find a few answers you seek and a few questions to chew on and maybe even find a creative expression of your own.

Download or read book The Art of Contemplation written by Mary Angelon Young and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2021-04-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was written during the global pandemic of 2020, when the gravity of our situation called us, as individuals, to sanity and inner strength. “Sheltering in place,” or “in confinement” as some prefer, we entered into a fierce and strange new world. If we had not actively developed our contemplative side before this, the insistent, benevolent voice of that inner world, so famously avoided in today’s society, now sounded a clarion call. The Art of Contemplation is intended to inspire your own reflections, as I explore the timeless treasure house of contemplation, the reasons we actually need it, and how to work with the blocks that most of us encounter on the way. For contemplation is a journey within, with no beginning and no end, taken from anywhere and everywhere that we find ourselves in life. For the theists among us, our contemplations will organically lead to prayer, just as bud goes to flower and flower goes to seed, which drops to the ground to begin another round of creation. For the nontheists, the inner state of contemplative prayer might be called inner stillness, meditation on truth, or the practice of pure awareness―or even “inner yoga,” as yoga is anything that links us to the Divine. It does not matter what we call it. What does matter is that we, as human beings, evolve in a mutual love affair with the Universe from which we are created. What matters is praise. There is a time to beg for grace to intervene in the sufferings we endure as human beings. As we contemplate our own awareness within the mystery of life, we begin to expand our generosity as vessels of awareness, of awakened consciousness, for our own personal transformation and for the benefit of all beings. Then our inner yoga takes flight. Resting in receptive inner space enables us to rejuvenate and restore, to tap intrinsic healing, intuitive and creative energies, at the level of source water where the river of life flows pristine and we touch the ineffable. The Taoists have a beautiful way of expressing it. Lao Tzu said, “Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.” Clarity is one of the many gifts of contemplation, and as we build a capacity for the inner journey, a sacred world is revealed in the mirror of the soul.

Download or read book Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries and the Rising of the Divine Lights written by Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi and published by Anqa Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major work of mystical literature, this account focuses on 14 visions in the form of dramatic conversations with the divine, interspersed with dazzling visionary episodes regarding the nature of existence, humans' relationship with reality, and the way to achieve true happiness. The introduction presents a resume of Ibn 'Arabi's life and examines in detail the style and symbolism of the contemplations. Presented for the first time in English, this work is a superb example of Ibn 'Arabi's inimitable style and deep perception.

Download or read book Creation and Contemplation written by Julien Decharneux and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Creation and Contemplation, Julien Decharneux explores the connections between the cosmology of the Qur’ān and various cosmological traditions of Late Antiquity, with a focus on Syriac Christianity. The first part of the book studies how, in exhorting its audience to contemplate the world, the Qur’ān carries on a tradition of natural contemplation that had developed throughout Late Antiquity in the Christian world. In this regard, the analysis suggests particularly striking connections with the mystical and ascetic literature of the Church of the East, which was in effervescence at the time of the emergence of Islam. The second part argues that the Qur’ānic cosmological discourse is built so as to serve the overarching theological message of the text, namely God’s absolute unity. Despite the allusive, and sometimes obscure, way in which the Qur’ān talks about the world’s coming into being and its maintenance in existence, the text betrays its authors’ acquaintance with cosmological debates of Late Antiquity. In studying the Qur’ān through the prism of Late Antiquity, this book contributes to our understanding of the emergence of Islam and its relationship with other religious traditions of the time. Winner of the 2022 Marie-Antoinette Van Huele Prize and the 2023 Richard Kreglinger Prize (both Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Free University of Brussels.

Download or read book An Ocean of Light written by Martin Laird and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-07 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For people drawn to a life of contemplation, the dawning of luminous awareness in a mind full of clutter is deeply liberating. In the third of his best-selling books on Christian contemplative life, Martin Laird turns his attention to those who are well settled in their contemplative practice. An Ocean of Light speaks both to those just entering the contemplative path and to those with a maturing practice of contemplation. Gradually, the practice of contemplation lifts the soul, freeing it from the blockages that introduce confusion into our identity and thus confusion about the mystery we call God. In the course of a lifetime of inner silencing, the flower of awareness emerges: a living realization that we have never been separate from God or from the rest of humanity while we each fully become what each of us is created to be. In contemplation we become so silent before God that the "before" drops away. Those whose lives have led them deeply into the silent land realize this, but not in the way that we realize that the square root of 144 is 12. Laird draws from a wide and diverse range of writers--from St. Augustine, Evagrius Ponticus, and St. Teresa of Avila to David Foster Wallace, Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, and Franz Wright--to ground his insight in an ancient practice and give it a voice in contemporary language. With his characteristic lyricism and gentleness, Laird guides readers through new challenges of contemplative life, such as making ourselves the focus of our own contemplative project; dealing with old pain; transforming the isolation of loneliness and depression into a liberating solidarity with all who suffer; and the danger of using a spiritual practice as a strategy to acquire and control.

Download or read book Staging Contemplation written by Eleanor Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-08-17 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to contemplate? In the Middle Ages, more than merely thinking with intensity, it was a religious practice entailing utter receptiveness to the divine presence. Contemplation is widely considered by scholars today to have been the highest form of devotional prayer, a rarified means of experiencing God practiced only by the most devout of monks, nuns, and mystics. Yet, in this groundbreaking new book, Eleanor Johnson argues instead for the pervasiveness and accessibility of contemplative works to medieval audiences. By drawing together ostensibly diverse literary genres—devotional prose, allegorical poetry, cycle dramas, and morality plays—Staging Contemplation paints late Middle English contemplative writing as a broad genre that operated collectively and experientially as much as through radical individual disengagement from the world. Johnson further argues that the contemplative genre played a crucial role in the exploration of the English vernacular as a literary and theological language in the fifteenth century, tracing how these works engaged modes of disfluency—from strained syntax and aberrant grammar, to puns, slang, code-switching, and laughter—to explore the limits, norms, and potential of English as a devotional language. Full of virtuoso close readings, this book demonstrates a sustained interest in how poetic language can foster a participatory experience of likeness to God among lay and devotional audiences alike.

Download or read book The Complete Angler Or The Contemplative Man s Recreation written by Izaak Walton and published by . This book was released on 1860 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Contemplative Philosopher written by Richard Lobb and published by . This book was released on 1817 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Contemplation written by Kevin Hart and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-09 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is contemplation? How is it distinct from meditation? Is contemplation essentially religious or mystical? What should one contemplate, and how? Are there different styles of contemplation, and why should one practice them? Ought we try to lead more contemplative lives? This book offers a philosophical introduction to the theory and practice of contemplation. Kevin Hart examines a variety of religious, aesthetic, and philosophical notions, shedding light on the singular qualities of contemplation. This book spans topics including the spiritual exercises of the ancient Greeks, overlooked aspects of Christian spirituality, and aesthetic contemplation of nature and art. Contemplation ranges from ancient thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, and Plotinus to Aquinas and other medieval theologians as well as modern philosophers like Kant, Husserl, and Wittgenstein. Though focused on Christianity, it also considers contemplation in other religious traditions, among them Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Paganism. Concise and comprehensive, this book provides both religious and nonreligious readers with a foundational understanding of the history and nature of contemplation as well as the benefits of practicing it.

Download or read book New Seeds of Contemplation written by Thomas Merton and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The much-beloved and most widely read of Mertons works, "New Seeds of Contemplation" covers a diverse range of subjects including faith, spiritual wonder, "the night of the senses," and renunciation.

Download or read book The Springs of Contemplation written by Thomas Merton and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Sixties, Merton invited a group of contemplative women -- cut off by inflexible rules from any analysis of important movements in the Church and the world -- to make a retreat with him at his abbey in Kentucky. What he and they said on such themes as "Zen, a Way of Living Life Directly," "Prophetic Choices," and "The Feminine Mystique," is the text of this book.

Download or read book Poetry of Contemplation written by Arthur L. Clements and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1990-06-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first systematic and thorough study of mysticism or contemplation in these three seventeenth-century poets and in three modern writers. It not only clarifies the very confused issue of mysticism in seventeenth-century poetry but also connects seventeenth-century poets with modern literature and science through the contemplative tradition; from the Bible and Plato and Church fathers and important mystics of the Middle Ages through Renaissance and modern contemplatives. The transformative and redemptive power of contemplative poetry or "holy writing" (regardless of genre or discipline) is prominent throughout the book, and the relevance, indeed the vital necessity, of such poetry and of the living contemplative tradition to our apocalyptic modern world is discussed in the last chapter. In this chapter, attention is given to modern science, especially to the new physics, and to philosophical and mystical writings of eminent scientists.