Celebrating the Divine Feminine Part 1

Gregg’s Reflection

I have been surrounded by strong women my whole life. My widowed grandmother got a masters degree so she could raise her five children as a teacher during the depression. She lived with us for some time when I was young, telling us stories of her travels around the world. My mother traveled alone from LA to Washington, DC early in World War II to work in the War Department (and met my father). My aunt was a nurse who got a PhD and taught at university for decades. My sister has a PhD in Drama and Performance and is a writer and professional storyteller.

For some time, I have been wading into the divine feminine. Two of our Living School faculty, Cynthia Bourgeault and Barbara Holmes are some of the modern voices I treasure. Jesus and the early church honored women in ways neither the Roman or Jewish culture did.

Genie and I traveled to Greece and Turkey. When in Ephesus, we saw both John’s grave, and Mary’s house. As this verse tells us, Mary lived with John after the crucifixion:

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. John 19:26-27

I will finish by offering you a beautiful a cappella song by Paulette Meier, quoting George Fox, one of the early Quakers thinkers, honoring the feminine voice:

Scripture

The Nature of Wisdom. There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle. For wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things. For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness. Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets. Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-27

God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Psalm 46:5

And Mary said: 'My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed’ Luke 1:46-48

The last words of Mary at the Wedding at Cana: Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” John 2:3-5 What better advice could she give any of us?

Ancient Writings

Amma Syncletica 4th Century

It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is solitary to live in the crowd of his own thoughts. Just as wax melts when it is near a fire, so the soul is destroyed by praise. It is impossible for us to be surrounded by worldly honour and at the same time to bear heavenly fruit.

Amma Syncletica, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Trans Benedicta Ward, p. 23

In the beginning there are a great many battles and a good deal of suffering for those who are advancing towards God, and afterwards, ineffable joy. It is like this who wish to light a fire; at first they are choked by the smoke and cry, and by this means obtain what they seek (it is said: Our God is a consuming fire, Heb 12:24); so we also must kindle the divine fire in ourselves through tears and hard work.

Amma Syncletica, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Trans Benedicta Ward, p. 231

Desert ascetics understood that the cultivation of inner freedom was vital to the deepening of their experience of God. As they deepened their interior freedom, all aspects of their false self were removed and a clearer understanding of their truest self emerged. It is this true self that dwells deeply with God. In the abundant simplicity of our true self, we experience deepest joy.

Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women, p. 21.

Hildegard of Bingen 1098-1179

Hard-heartedness is …the worst sin since it shows no mercy.  Neither does it think that charity is necessary nor does it do any good works….  Hard-heartedness was strong in tyrants, yet no one is able to be satisfied by abundance—you are only bored by it. Hildegard tells us that ...this sin hardens people so much that they do not wish to know the image of God nor recognize it in other people because without kindness they lack any kind of mercy and goodness.

Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox, 7/28/21 

Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.

Claire of Assisi 1194-1253

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance, and through Contemplation, allow your entire being to be transformed into the image of the Godhead itself, so that you may taste the hidden sweetness that God has reserved for his lovers.

St. Claire, Armstrong, Third Letter to Agnes of Prague, Claire of Assisi, Early Documents, p. 51

Theosis is understood as a true, objective sharing and growing in our divine nature, which was then reflected and received in humans as in a mirror. All we can really do is polish our own mirror to reflect the gift of this Godself more perfectly.

St. Claire, Armstrong, Third Letter to Agnes of Prague, Claire of Assisi, Early Documents, p. 55

Mechthild of Magdeburg 1212-1282

God spoke to Saint Mechtilde, “Do not fear your own death, for when that moment comes, I will draw in my breath and you will come to me as a needle to a magnet.”

If you love the justice of Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment then you will seek to do compassion. Compassion means that if I see my friend and my enemy in equal need, I shall help them both equally. Justice demands that we seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner and comfort them and offer them our help. Here lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devils much distress.

A Light of utmost splendor glows on the eyes of my soul. Therein have I seen the inexpressible ordering of all things, and recognized God's unspeakable glory – that incomprehensible wonder – the tender caress between God and the soul...the unmingled joy of union, the living love of eternity as it now is and evermore shall be.

Remember, the smallest of souls is still the daughter of the Father, the sister of the Son, the friend of the Holy Spirit and the true bride of the Trinity.

Mechthilde of Magdeburg, Woodruff, Meditations with Mechthilde, p.46

There comes a time when both body and soul enter into such a vast darkness that one loses light and consciousness and knows nothing more of God’s intimacy. At such a time when the light in the lantern burns out the beauty of the lantern can no longer be seen. With longing and distress, we are reminded of our nothingness.

Mechthilde of Magdeburg, Woodruff, Meditations with Mechthilde of Magdeburg, p. 60-61

God said to Mechtilde, “I who am Divine am truly in you. I can never be sundered from you; however far we may be parted, never can we be separated. I am in you and you are in Me. We could not be any closer. We two are fused into one, poured into a single mold; thus unwearied, we shall remain forever.”

Mechthilde of Magdeburg, Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, p. 65

God, you are the sun, I am your reflection. When God shines, we reflect. 

Mechthild of Magdeburg, Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, p. 73

Julian of Norwich 1342-1416

Julian of Norwich understood the central message for spiritual life: God is love and it is only if one opens oneself to this love, totally and with total trust, and lets it become one's sole guide in life, that all things are transfigured, true peace and true joy found and one is able to radiate it.” At a General Audience on December 1, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI discussed the life and teaching of Julian. He concluded. "'And all will be well,' 'all manner of things shall be well': this is the final message that Julian of Norwich transmits to us and that I am also proposing to you today.

Pope Benedict XVI

Julian of Norwich suffered a near fatal illness at age 30. During the five days she lingered near death, God revealed himself to her through Divine showings. She retired to a cell and remained there contemplating what she had been shown for the rest of her life. Her book is the first book published by a woman in English. Here are her thoughts on suffering after seeing Jesus dying on the cross in her visions: “We are now on His cross with Him in our pains and our suffering, dying; and if we willingly remain on the same cross with His help and His grace until the last moment, suddenly He shall change his appearance to us, and we shall be with Him in heaven and then shall be brought to joy. And here I saw truthfully that if He showed us His most blissful face now, there is no pain on earth nor in any other place that would distress us, but everything would be to us joy and bliss. And for this little pain that we suffer here shall have an exalted endless knowledge in God, which we could never have without that pain. The crueler our pains have been with Him on His cross, the more shall our honor be with Him in His Kingdom.”

The Complete Julian of Norwich, Fr. John-Julian, p. 132-133

The more we see [and know our failures], the more by grace we shall long to be filled full of endless joy, for we are created for that.

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, chapter 8

The root of our suffering, what really cripples us, is the loss of experiential access to the love nature of ourselves as being the very manifestations of infinite love pouring itself out as life itself. The pain cuts off experiential access to the love that is reverberating and is intimately at one with that very pain itself.

Jim Finley, teaching on Julian of Norwich in the Living School. 

And thus, in all this beholding it seemed to me to be necessary to know that we are sinners, and we do many evils that we ought to stop, and we leave many good deeds undone that we ought to do. And for this we deserve pain and blame. But notwithstanding all this, I saw truthfully that our Lord was never angry, nor ever shall be, for He is God: He is good, He is life, He is truth, He is love, He is peace; and His power, His wisdom, His Love, and His Unity do not allow Him to be angry. (For I saw truly that it is against the character of His Power to be angry, and against the character of His Wisdom, and against the character of His Goodness.) 

What a beautiful picture of the character of God, from the Revelations of Julian of Norwich

The place which Jesus takes in our soul he will nevermore vacate, for in us is his home of homes, and it is the greatest delight for him to dwell there. . . . And the soul who contemplates this is made like [the one] who is contemplation. 

Julian of Norwich, The Fourteenth Revelation, ch. 53

We will not take possession of our birthright of never-ending joy until we find ourselves fully gratified with God and all his actions and judgments, loving and nonviolent toward ourselves and toward all our fellow seekers and able to love everything God loves.

Matthew Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond, p. 25

Greatly ought we to rejoice that God dwells in our soul; and more greatly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwells in God. Our soul is created to be God's dwelling place, and the dwelling of our soul is God.

Julian of Norwich

For He says, “I shall totally shatter you because of your vain affections and your vicious pride; and after that I shall gather you together and make you humble and gentle, pury and holy, by oneing you to myself.”

The Complete Julian, Fr John-Julian,

“That which is impossible for you is not impossible to me.” Our Good Lord answered all my questions by saying, “I can make all things well, I know how to make all things well, I desire to make all things well, I will make all things well. And you will see with your own eyes that every kind of thing will be well.” 

Doyle, Meditations with Julian, p. 53, 58

The fruit and the purpose of prayer is to be Oned with and like God in all things.

Meditations wits Julian Brendan Doyle p. 70

Our soul is oned to God, unchangeable goodness, and therefore between God and our soul there is neither wrath or forgiveness because there is no in between.

Doyle, Meditations with Julian, p. 77

We are in God, and God whom we do not see is in us.

Doyle, Meditations with Julian, p. 89

God is nearer to us than our own soul.

Doyle, Meditations with Julian, p. 95

And thus I saw him and I sought him, and I possessed him and I lacked him. (The lacking only increased the longing. Jim Finley Living School teaching). The constant seeking of the soul pleases God very much, for the soul can do no more than seek, suffer and trust. The seeking with faith, hope, and love pleases our Lord, and the finding pleases the soul and fills it full of joy.

The Complete Julian of Norwich, Fr John-Julian, p. 95, 99

It is God’s will that we have three objects in our seeking: The first is that we seek willingly and diligently, without laziness, as much as possible through His grace, gladly and merrily without unreasonable sadness and useless sorrow. The second is we await Him steadfastly because of His love. The third is that we trust in Him mightily in fully certain faith, for it is His will that we know that He shall appear without warning and full of blessing to all His lovers.

The Complete Julian of Norwich, Fr John-Julian, p. 101

Some of us believe God is all-power and can do all, and that God is all-wisdom and knows how to do all. But God is all-love and wants to love all, and here we restrain ourselves. And this ignorance hinders most of God’s lovers, as I see it...God wants to be thought of as our lover.

Doyle,  Meditations with Julian of Norwich p. 113, 119

Beautifully he sits, peacefully and restfully, in the soul, his most familiar home and endless dwelling.

Doyle,  Meditations with Julian of Norwich p. 114

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything. 

Complete Julian p. 171

By contrition we are made pure, By compassion we are made ready, And by true yearning for God, we are made worthy. These are the three means by which all souls come to Heaven.

Complete Julian, Fr John-Julian, p. 185

All this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind. He said, “I am the Ground of your praying. First, it is my will that you have something, and next I make you want it, and afterward I cause you to pray for it. If you pray for it, how then could it be that you wouldn’t get what you asked for?”

Complete Julian, Fr John-Julian, p. 191

Prayer is a right understanding of that fullness of joy that is to come, along with a true yearning and certain trust. In prayer, the lacking of our bliss naturally makes us yearn; true understanding and love graciously makes us trust. And thus, by nature do we yearn, and by grace do we trust.

Complete Julian, Fr John-Julian, p. 199

This is the reason why we do not feel complete ease in our hearts and souls: we look here for satisfaction in things which are so trivial, where there is no rest to be found, and do not know our God, who is almighty, all wise, all good; he is rest itself. God wishes to be known, and is pleased that we should rest in him; for all that is below does nothing to satisfy us; and this is why, until all that is made seems as nothing, no soul can be at rest.

Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, McGinn, p. 242

Before this time, I had a great yearning and desire to be delivered from this world for frequently I saw the woe here, and the well-being and bliss that exists there. The Lord answered, ‘Without warning you shall be taken from all your pain, from all your sickness, from all your distress, from all your woe, and you shall come up above, and you shall have me for your reward, and you shall be filled with love and bliss, and you shall never have any manner of pain, nor any manner of sickness, nor any manner of displeasure, nor any lack of will, but always joy and bliss without end. Why then should it bother you to suffer a while, seeing that it is my Will and to my honor?

Complete Julian of Norwich p. 303.

When we are fallen because of frailty or blindness, then our gracious Lord inspires us, stirs us and calls us, and then he wills that we see our wretchedness and humbly let it be acknowledged. But He does not wish us to remain thus. Nor does He will that we busy ourselves greatly about accusing ourselves, nor does He will that we be full of misery about ourselves; for He wills that we quickly attend to Him; for He stands all alone and waits for us constantly, sorrowing and mourning until we come, and hastens to take us to himself, for we are His joy and delight and He is our cure and our life. 

Doyle, Complete Julian, p. 357

God is within us, at home, patiently and kindly awaiting our recognition. As Maker of all, God is in everything, present in all places and at all times.

Selections from Revelations of Divine Love—Annotated & Explained, annotation by Mary C. Earle, p. 116.

Catherine of Siena 1347-1380

St Catherine of Siena, in her Dialog, describes the spiritual life as a large tree: The trunk of the tree is love. The core of the tree, that middle part that must be alive for the rest of the tree to live, is patience. The roots of the tree are self-knowledge. The many branches, reaching out through the air, are discernment. In other words, love does not happen without patience, self-knowledge and discernment.

Catherine of Genoa 1447-1510

“My deepest me is God.” St. Catherine of Genoa. God is both utterly beyond me and yet totally within me at the same time. Rohr, Yes, and, p. 48

Mysticism begins when the transcendent image of God recedes and there’s a deepening sense of God as immanent, present, here, now, safe, and even within me. St Catherine of Genoa said, “My deepest me is God.” Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 109

St. Teresa of Ávila 1515-1582

You find God in yourself and yourself in God.

This path of self-knowledge must never be abandoned, nor is there on this journey a soul so much a giant that it has no need to return often to the stage of an infant. Along this path of prayer, self-knowledge and the thought of one’s sins are the bread with which all palates must be fed no matter how delicate they may be; they cannot be sustained without this bread.

Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home. Listen. Softly, the One you love is calling. That is your Beloved reclining in the innermost chamber, waiting for you.

Mirabai Starr, intro to The Interior Castle, p. 2-3

Whenever I have surrendered to obedience, impossible things have become simple.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr p. 29

If virtue is true virtue, its source is God.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr p. 41

All streams flowing forth from a clear spring are also clear. So it is with a soul in grace. Planted like a tree in the spring of life, her deeds delight both the human and the divine. If it were not for this spring sustaining the tree, there would be no shade, no sweet fruit.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 42

It is a wonderful thing for the soul to connect with others who walked the way she is walking, who she knows have already ventured more deeply towards the center. Conversations with these travelers will be of great benefit to the soul; she can get close enough to them so that they will be able to take her with them.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 59 

I can’t seem to resist those who make such a big deal about periods of aridity as being somewhat lacking in humility.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 72

We must strip ourselves naked and cultivate detachment from things of the world. Abandon yourselves only under the condition that you harbor no illusions about the beloved being under some obligation to repay you for your sacrifice with divine favors.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 73

Seek out someone who is free from illusion about the world. It is very important to consult with those who are seeing things as they really are if we are to come to know ourselves. Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 83

Our safety lies in steadfast surrender to the will of God.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 137

Imaginary virtues are always accompanied by a certain arrogance. The virtues God gives us are unencumbered by pride.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 141

All things can be seen in God because God has all things inside himself.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 144

God has other ways of awakening the soul. The blessing takes the form of a spiritual voice-a kind of auditory vision. Remember, spirit voices can come from God, from the spirit of evil, or from our own imagination. Here are the clearest indications that a spiritual voice comes from God. First and truest sign is the power and authority they bear. That which is revealed is manifested in works. “Be not troubled” and all at once the fearful person is calmed. Second sign is the great quietude left in the soul. She lingers in peaceful recollection and devotion. Third sign is the words do not fade from memory. The certainty inside the soul is unconditional. The soul would die for her truth. When spiritual voices arise from the imagination, none of these signs are present. The soul lacks certainty, peace, and interior delight. There is more to fear in the spiritual voices that come from the spirit of evil. But, if the voices carry the signs we’ve talked about, you can be sure they come from God. Don’t act without consulting a wise and cautious guide. Another way the Beloved speaks is through a kind of intellectual vision. The words are absolutely clear. A genuine spiritual voice is so clear the soul remembers every word. Frequently the soul hadn’t even been thinking about the things she hears. In a false spiritual voice her imagination composes bit by bit what the soul wants to hear. In a real one she hears truth. The mind grasps truth far more profoundly and with greater immediacy than the intellect could ever present on its own. 

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 173-183

Do you think that your deep humility, your self-sacrifice, your bountiful charity and commitment to being of service to all beings is meaningless? The fire of your love for God enkindles other souls. You awaken them through the living example of your own virtues. This is no small service! It’s highly pleasing to the Lord. Do what you can do. His Majesty will understand that you yearn to do much more. And he will reward you as if you had guided a thousand unknown souls to him.

Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 294

Give me the grace to recollect myself in the little heaven of my soul where You have established Your dwelling. There You let me find You, there I feel that You are closer to me than anywhere else, and there You prepare my soul quickly to enter into intimacy with You … Help me O Lord, to withdraw my senses from exterior things, make them docile to the commands of my will, so that when I want to converse with You, they will retire at once, like bees shutting themselves up in the hive in order to make honey.

If you wish to find Me / In yourself seek Me.

Seeking God, in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Ávila, vol. 3,

He desired me so I came close. No one can come near God unless He has prepared a bed for you. A thousand souls hear His call every second, but most every one then looks into life’s mirror and says, “I am not worthy to leave this sadness.” When I first heard His courting song, I too looked at all I had done in my life and said, “How can I gaze into His omnipresent eyes?” I spoke those words with all my heart, but then He sang again, a song even sweeter, and when I tried to shame myself once more from His presence God showed me His compassion and spoke a divine truth, “I made you, dear, and all I make is perfect. Please come close, for I desire you.” "What we seek seeks us more." 

St. Teresa of Ávila

Modern Writings

St. Thérèse of Lisieux 1873-1897

I know from experience that the kingdom of God is within you. Jesus has no need of books or teachers to instruct souls. He teaches me without the noise of words, Never have I heard him speak, but I feel He is within me at each moment; He is guiding and inspiring me with what I must say and do.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, p. 179

Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude...He finds few hearts who surrender to him without reservation, who understand the real tenderness of his Infinite Love.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, p. 188-189

Is there a joy greater than that of suffering out of love for you?

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul p. 214

What is it then to be ‘drawn’ if not to be united in an intimate way to the object that captivates our heart? I ask Jesus to draw me into the flames of his love, to unite me so closely to him that he lives and acts in me.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, p. 257

Archimedes said, “Give me a lever and a fulcrum and I will lift the world.” God has given his saints as fulcrum, himself alone; as lever, prayer which burns with the fire of love, and it is in this way that they have lifted the world.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, p. 258

Polly Baca

The challenges we encounter are often road maps, pointing us in a different direction than one we might have planned. If we can open ourselves to trusting the divine and allowing our lives to unfold, it’s amazing what can happen.

Polly Baca

Sarah Bessey

The Subversive Nature of Hope . Hope is subversive precisely because it dares to admit that all is not as it should be. And so we are holding out for, working for, creating, prophesying, and living into something better — for the kingdom to come, for oaks of righteousness to tower, for leaves to blossom for the healing of the nations, for swords to be beaten into plowshares, for joy to come in the morning, and for redemption and justice.

Teresa Blythe

Prayer Exercise: Deep within each of us is a prayer phrase longing to be expressed, what some have named the Prayer of the Heart. It consists of two simple phrases—one said on inhalation and one said on exhalation. Early Christians used to pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” in this fashion. That was their deep longing, for Jesus to return and be among them in physical reality. We will spend time in this exercise finding those prayers that are as close to us as our very breath. The beauty of this prayer is the way it stays with us all day, all week, or even for a lifetime if we allow it. 

Begin seated in a comfortable position. Make sure your body weight is distributed in such a way that you feel stable. Take about five deep, slow breaths and allow the tension of the day to flow out with each exhalation. After five deliberate breaths, turn your attention away from counting and allow your breath to find its natural pace. 

What is your deepest and truest longing for life with God at this moment? If you find that your longing feels “tacky” or too worldly, try suspending judgment and instead looking at what’s at the base of that desire. When you check in with your deepest and truest self, what is it that you seek from God? 

Give that longing a short phrase. For example, if your deep desire is inner freedom, then your phrase would be “freedom” or “inner freedom.” Make sure that your phrase is not too long. 

What is your favorite name for God? How do you image the Creator? Choose whatever name seems to fit best for you. Some examples include: Jesus, Wisdom, Father, Mother, or Mystery. Be as creative as you want to be. But again, keep the name rather short. 

Combine your name for God with your longing. For example, if my phrase is “freedom” and the name I choose for God is Christ, my prayer of the heart might be “Freedom, in Christ.” Spend a few moments coming up with your two-part prayer. 

Begin to say—either aloud or silently—your phrase. You may inhale on the name of God and exhale on the desire or vice versa. Spend several minutes breathing this prayer. Make it your own. Allow God to inhabit this prayer. 

After several minutes of repeating this prayer, sink into contemplative silence. Allow the love of God to fill you and surround you.

If you want to be sure to remember this phrase to pray it throughout the day, write it down. You might want to place it on the back of a business card and put it in your wallet or pocket. Place it on a sticky note next to your computer, or on the door of your refrigerator.  

Teresa A. Blythe, 50 Ways to Pray: Practices from Many Traditions and Times, p. 36-38.

Cynthia Bourgeault

Silence and contemplation is a way of learning how to, in a nanosecond, instantly surrender your being entirely into God and then walk into the noise and fray with steel nerves — or with a quaking heart, but with steel nerves. You just do it.

Cynthia Bourgeault

There is the light of God in every person and, in sitting in silence and stillness, that light will be known to you.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 104

Hope’s home is at the innermost point in us, and in all things. It is a quality of aliveness. It does not come at the end, as the feeling that results from a happy outcome. Rather, it lies at the beginning, as a pulse of truth that sends us forth. When our innermost being is attuned to this pulse it will send us forth in hope, regardless of the physical circumstances of our lives. Hope fills us with the strength to stay present, to abide in the flow of the Mercy no matter what outer storms assail us. It is entered always and only through surrender; that is, through the willingness to let go of everything we are presently clinging to. And yet when we enter it, it enters us and fills us with its own life—a quiet strength beyond anything we have ever known.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God, p. 86–87.

The thought that Grace comes from outside ourselves can only be held in a dualistic mind.

Cynthia Bourgeault. 

In the Desert, freedom is not about having limitless options; it is about being able to say “Yes” wholeheartedly to whatever the present moment holds.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Desert Fathers and Mothers Foundational Glossary

The work of compassion is indeed a non-negotiable human responsibility, and there is a fundamental relationship between compassion and abundance. But what people nearly always miss is the direction of flow in this relationship. Contrary to apparent logic, for Jesus compassion is a fruit of the abundance, not a means to it. Perceiving the abundance comes first. Then compassion follows as its natural trajectory. Jesus’ implacable opposition to any form of clinging and hoarding is not simply for external reasons; not just because it creates a constriction in the flow of the abundance. The real damage is internal: it makes us spiritually blind. We become literally unable to perceive the abundance that in fact surrounds us, or to participate in the dance of giving-is-receiving.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Problem with Hoarding

In the gospels, all the people who encountered Jesus only by hearsay, by what somebody else believed about him, by what they’d been told, by what they hoped to get out of him: all those people left. They still leave today. The ones that remained-and still remain-are the ones who have met him in the moment: in the instantaneous, mutual recognition of hearts and in the ultimate energy that is always pouring forth from this encounter. It is indeed the wellspring.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Jesus, p. 12

Letting Go of Power. Jesus modeled the path of kenosis. Taken from the Greek word in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:5–9­), it means to “let go” or “to empty oneself.” Jesus’s life on earth was a purely kenotic, downwardly mobile path. . . . Jesus could have been a prince on a throne, holding power, riches, and every kind of privilege. Instead, he denied it. He let it go. . . . He consciously chose a path that assured suffering, humiliation, desolation, and finally death on a cross. In response, God lifted him up and gave him glory. None of this was an accident or coincidence. Jesus entered as he did, where he did, doing what he did, because God needed us to finally comprehend the truth: God is the love that gives itself away for the sake of more love. Jesus could only communicate that point by standing outside the power structures and inviting disciples to join him and discover new life with him on the margins. . . .In Jesus, God shows us what it looks like to be this vulnerable, humble, and self-giving. In him, we see one who did not run from the things that broke his heart, nor did he first calculate what he could gain from a situation. Jesus sought instead to give away his life, so he and others might flourish as God intends. . . .

God invites us into a covenant, where by the power of the Spirit we can choose to allow our hearts to break, and then take the pieces—our lives, our goods, our love, and our privileges—and share it all like a broken loaf of communion bread.

Granted, this is a very non-American way of being. So much of our American story consists of groups of people protecting themselves and what’s theirs, with a gun or a flag or the cloak of racial, class, or gender privilege. Jesus’s story is exactly the opposite. In this moment, as we reckon with the limits and consequences of self-centrism, domination systems, and the church’s capitulation to empire, we could lean into the Jesus way. We could reclaim kenosis, or perhaps claim it for the first time. . . . When you take something you possess—your bread and power, your abilities and identities, your comfort and control, your treasured structures and even life itself—and release your attachment to it and make it useful to God’s movement, you are practicing kenosis.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—a New Perspective on Christ and His Message p. 70.

As we practice in daily life, in our acts of compassion, kindness, and self emptying, both at the level of are doing an even more at the level of our being, something is catalyzed out of that self emptying which is pure divine substance mirrored in our own true face. Subtle qualities of divine love essential to the well-being of this planet are released through right actions and flow out into the world as miracle, healing, and hope.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Jesus, p. 73

As the church took shape as an institution, it could not exceed the wingspan of its first of apostolic teachers; what they themselves did not fully understand, they could not hope accurately to transmit. Thus, right from the start the radical simplicity of Jesus’s kenotic path tends to get roped back into the older and more familiar ascetic models.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Jesus, p. 76-77

Jesus’s life is a sacrament: a mystery that draws us deeply into itself and, when rightly approached, conveys an actual spiritual energy empowering us to follow the path that his teachings have laid out.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus p. 91

Fascinating confirmation that kenosis is indeed an evolutionary human pathway is emerging from—of all places—recent discoveries in neuroscience. From fMRI data collected primarily by the California-based HeartMath Institute, you can now verify chapter and verse that how you respond to a stimulus in the outer world determines which neural pathways will be activated in your brain, and between your brain and your heart. If you respond with any form of initial negativity (which translates physiologically as constriction)—freezing, bracing, clinging, clenching, and so on—the pathway illumined leads to your amygdala (or “reptilian brain,” as it’s familiarly known) . . . which controls a repertory of highly energized fight-or-flight responses. If you can relax into a stimulus—opening, softening, yielding, releasing—the neural pathway leads through the more evolutionarily advanced parts of your forebrain and, surprisingly, brings brain and heart rhythms into entrainment. . . .Every time we manage to let go of a thought in Centering Prayer, “consenting to the presence and action of God within,” the gesture is actually physically embodied. It’s not just an attitude; something actually “drops and releases” in the solar plexus region of your body, a subtle but distinct form of interior relaxation. . . . And in time, this gentle and persistent “inner aerobics,” undertaken under the specific banner of Centering Prayer and in solidarity with Jesus’s own kenotic path, will gradually establish that “mind of Christ” within you as your own authentic self.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice, p. 33–36.

Richard Rohr uses the term non-dual to designate one’s personal capacity to bear paradox and ambiguity. Dualistic thinking is thinking marked by a rigorous either/or dichotomy and the insistence on black-and-white, exclusive solutions. Nondual is expressed in the capacity to hold the tension of opposites, rest comfortably in ambiguity, and resist the tendency to demonize and exclude. By definition of mystical experience is nondual. The classical descriptions of mystical experience inevitably feature that brief, overpowering sense of the boundaries dissolving and finding oneself at one with everything. The boundaries dissolve, the oneness flows in, and the world is bathed, for as long as the experience lasts, with the radiance of intrinsic wholeness.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 44-45

“Put the mind in the heart…..Put the mind in the heart…..Stand before the Lord with the mind in the heart.” Page after page of the Philokalia, the same refrain emerges. In our own times the word “heart” has come to be associated primarily with the emotions (as opposed to the mental operations of the mind), so the instruction will inevitably heard at be heard as get out of your mind and into your emotions which is, alas, pretty close to 180° from what the instruction is actually saying. Yes, it is certainly true that the heart’s native language is affectivity— perception through deep feeling. To unlock the wisdom of these ancient texts, we need to gently set aside our contemporary fascination with emotivity and return to the classic understanding which features the heart in a far more spacious and luminous role. The heart is first and foremost an organ of spiritual perception. Its primary function is to look beyond the obvious and see into a deeper reality. Faith really designates not a leaping into the dark but a subtle seeing in the dark, but kind of spiritual night vision allows one to see with inner certainty.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 53-54

We have subtle subconscious faculties we are not using. Beyond the limited analytic intellect is a vast realm of the mind that includes psychic and extrasensory abilities; intuition; wisdom; a sense of unity; aesthetic, qualitative and creative faculties; an image-forming and symbolic capacities. Though these faculties are many, we give them a single name with some justification for they are working best one they are in concert. They comprise a mind, moreover, in spontaneous connection to the cosmic mind. This total mind we call the “heart.”  Awakening the heart, or the spiritualized mind, is an unlimited process of making the mind more sensitive, focused, energized, subtle, and refined, of joining it to its cosmic milieux, the infinity of love.

Kabir Helminski, Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 55

Soul is the supreme fruit of our earthly sojourn, forged in the refiner’s fire of our conscious labor and intentional suffering.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart, p. 58

The heart does not need to be grown or evolved, but it does need to be purified. In its spiritual capacity, the heart is essentially a homing beacon, allowing us to stay aligned with those emanations from more subtle levels of existence. But, when the signals get jammed by the interference of lower-level noise, then it is no longer able to do its beacon work. The Christian Wisdom tradition proclaims that the source of lower-level noise is “the passions.” The problem with the passions is they divide the heart. A heart that is divided, pulled this way and that by competing agendas, is like a wind-tossed sea: unable to reflect on its surface the clear image of the moon. (Structural Conflict)

Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 61

When the first stirrings of what will eventually become full-fledged passionate outbursts appear on the screen of consciousness, they begin as thoughts. At first they are merely that thought-loops, mere flotsam on the endlessly moving river of the mind. But at some point a thought-loop will entrain with one’s sense of identity—an emotional value or point of you is suddenly at stake-and then one is hooked. A passion is born, and the emotions spew forth.(Amygdala Hijack). Liberation lies in an increasingly developed inner capacity to notice when a thought is beginning to take on an emotional coloration and to nip it in the bud before it becomes a passion-by disidentifying or disengaging from it. This is the essence of the teaching that has held sway in our tradition for more than a thousand years.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 62-63.

The cave of the heart is entered not only or even primarily through purification and concentration, but through surrender and release. The heart of Centering Prayer is founded entirely on the gesture of surrender, or letting go. Its theological foundation rests on the principle of kenosis (Philippians 2:6), Jesus’s self-emptying love that forms the core of his own self understanding and life practice. During the prayer time, surrender is practiced through the letting go of thoughts as they arise. With committed practice, this well-rehearsed gesture of release is inwardly imprinted and begins to coalesce as a distant “magnetic center” within you; it can usually be experienced on a subtle physical level as a “drop and release” in the solar plexus region and as a tug to center. Most experienced practitioners begin to feel this tug outside their time of prayer, reminding them of the deepening river of prayer that has begun to flow in them beneath the surface of their ordinary lives.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 67-69

Spiritual transformation begins by engaging the heart’s natural capacity to feel. Once the heart has been stirred by strong emotions, it is a surprisingly short step to concentrate and purify those emotions through spiritual practice and harness their vibrant energy for spiritual awakening. By embracing the full intensity of these feelings, an ardor is generated that catapults the heart free and clear of its egocentric orbit and straight into the heart of God. 

Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 70

Heart-centered cognition, neuroscientists are now telling us, is really kind of an “operating system,” a way of organizing the perceptual field so that we perceive holographically (through electro-magnetic resonance) rather than through the subject/object differentiation fundamental to brain-centered cognition. Heart-centered cognition is the foundational physiological prerequisite for the emergence of a stable nondual consciousness. Non dual perception is not about what you see but how you see it. It retrains the brain through withdrawing attention from objects (which reinforces mental cognition) and learning to gather it into a central reservoir of spiritual attentiveness.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p. 153

Obedience. The Latin root of the word actually means to “listen deeply” or “listen from the depths,” “with the ear of the heart,” as St Benedict puts it. That listening itself is a doing, a submission to what the heart has heard.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart, p. 113

Chanting is at the heart of all sacred traditions worldwide, and for very good reason: it is fundamentally a deep-immersion experience in the creative power of the universe itself. Perhaps no community has done more to reclaim the sacred Christian practice of chanting than Taizé, the small ecumenical community in France founded in the late 1940s. They remind us that “through [the songs], little by little, our being finds an inner unity in God. They can continue in the silence of our hearts when we are at work, speaking with others or resting. In this way prayer and daily life are united. They allow us to keep on praying even when we are unaware of it, in the silence of our hearts. (Taize newsletter).

Cynthia Bourgeault, CAC Morning Devo, 7/13/21

Anything that brings your attention to a focal point—be it an idea, an emotion, a memory, a commentary, or a physical sensation (like an itch on your nose, or a ticking clock in the room)—is a “thought,” and needs to be let go for it stands in the way of the kind of objectless awareness which is the only mode in which God can be accessed or “known.”

Cynthia Bourgeault 

The sense of joyful, flowing oneness that so marks the final years of Thomas Keating’s life didn’t “just happen.” For most of us—including for Thomas himself—it comes at the end of a painful season of stripping and purification that has classically been called “the Dark Night of the Spirit.”

Cynthia Bourgeault, CAC Morning Devo, 10/22/20

Beneath the shattered surface of the world, it became possible to see how tenderly all things are being held in love.

Cynthia Bourgeault Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 10

A Wisdom way of knowing . . . requires the whole of one’s being and is ultimately attained only through the yielding of one’s whole being into the intimacy of knowing and being known. . . . It doesn’t happen apart from complete vulnerability and self-giving. But the divine Lover is absolutely real, and for those willing to bear the wounds of intimacy, the knowledge of that underlying coherence—“in which all things hold together”—is both possible and inevitable.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 10.

Jesus’ power rests on his ability to awaken that which lies at the core of my own being. There is something deep and pristinely clear in each of us that has the capacity to recognize wisdom when we meet it, and it is the nature of wisdom teaching to call this something forth. Until that spark of recognition goes off, wisdom remains invisible.

Cynthia Bourgeault Wisdom Way of Knowing, p.14

The real source of wisdom lies in a higher or more vivid realm of divine consciousness that is neither behind us or ahead of us but always surrounding us.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 25

As we learn to open ourselves deeply to the mysterious source, help will always come, for the source “leans and harkens towards us” with a tenderness of love that is both the medium and the message.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 26

Wisdom is a way of knowing that goes beyond one’s mind, one’s rational understanding, and embraces the whole of a person: mind, heart, and body. The intellectual faculty is one way of knowing, to be sure, but it is joined by two additional faculties: the intelligence of the “moving center” and the intelligence of the “emotional center.” These three centers must all be working, and working in harmony, as the first prerequisite to the Wisdom way of knowing. The heart and the emotional center are not identical. The emotional center is the capacity to explore and receive information from the world through empathetic entrainment by what we might call vibrational resonance. Of all the centers, the emotional center moves the fastest. It’s the part of us that gets the impression instantly. It is our antenna given to us to orient us toward the divine radiance. The heart is not for personal expression but for divine perception. When a person is poised in all three centers, balanced and alertly there, a shift happens in consciousness. Rather than being trapped in our usual mind, with its well-formed rut tracks of issues and agendas and ways of thinking, we seem to come from a deeper, steadier, and quieter place. We are present, in the words of Wisdom tradition, fully occupying the now in which we find ourselves. Presence is the straight and narrow gate through which one passes to Wisdom. This state of presence is extraordinarily important to know and taste in oneself. For sacred tradition is emphatic in its insistence that real Wisdom can be given and received only in a state of presence, with all three centers of our being engaged and awake. Anything less is known in the tradition as “sleep.” It is like the disciple Peter suddenly sinking beneath the surface of the waters [Matthew 14:30]. 

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 27, 36-37

The heart is an organ for the perception of divine purpose and beauty. It is our antennae, given to orient us toward the divine radiance and to synchronize our being with its more subtle movements. The heart is not for personal expression, but for divine perception.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 34

As we wander in a perpetual spiritual adolescence, attempting to fill the hunger in our hearts with our needs rather than the Divine need, creation itself pays the price. 

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 43

We are not here to live forever but to die well, releasing to the atmosphere courage, dignity and trust. Whenever we are able to move beyond the laws of the purely physical while still in form, we set aflame the names of God, releasing the energy and beauty of divine aliveness to the outer world.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 56

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 59

Like a storm tossed lake, our own waves and agitation get in the way of a clear picture. Training in wisdom has to do with purifying the heart and polishing the mirror of awareness, by gradually freeing it from domination by the small self ego. As the heart becomes undivided, a still and accurately reflecting mirror, it begins to be able to see and swim in the deeper waters of the Divine coming into form.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 87-88

“Real imagination-the science of reading the images as they emerge from the imaginal realm -can begin only after the personal imagination has been brought under control. Before it is safe to enter these deeper waters of visionary seeing where the currents of divine passion run hard and deep, the imagination must be contained between the twin banks of attention (teaching it to stay put at a single point) and surrender (letting go of all phenomena as they occur).” 

Cynthia Bourgeault, WWK 89-90. “When the heart is pure, it sees straight into the imagination world.” P.96

The heart itself is notoriously difficult to work with directly. But by working with the more mental disciplines of attention and focus, balance and surrender, we bring about the conditions in which the heart can reverberate spontaneously with ‘the infinity of love.’ If we spiritualize the mind, the heart will follow.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 100-101

The immediate purpose of meditation is to break the tyranny of your usual mind with its constant, compulsive thinking. The long term and more powerful purpose is to catapult you into the direct experience of Being itself unmediated by thinking and allow a strong, visceral first taste of what heart perception feels like.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 103

The Divine compassion can begin to operate, for once your being has become inwardly gentled and peaceable, those qualities of aliveness will flow out to others as a spontaneous healing and delight. I am not only able to wake up from my own fog but also to share that fresh breeze of awakening with those around me.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 112

On the journey towards contemplation, we begin with the chaos of an undisciplined mind and emotional wounds that have never healed. Here is the pathway of contemplation and the states that arise on the journey:

Intention------> Attention------> Ease------> Joy------> Curiosity

Emerge from self to soul to Spirit. Cynthia Bourgeault

How do we put on the mind of Christ? How do we see through his eyes? How do we feel through his heart? How do we learn to respond to the world with that same wholeness and healing love? Jesus says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. The Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness; it is not a place you go to, but a place you come from. It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place. . . The hallmark of this awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. And these are indeed Jesus’s two core teachings, underlying everything he says and does. . . When Jesus talks about this Oneness, what he more has in mind is a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other.

Cynthia Bourgeault, CAC Morning Devo, 11/18/20

We are downloading the eternal into the now. There is tremendous exchange between the realms.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Living School Teaching

Virtually every spiritual tradition that holds a vision of human transformation at its heart also claims that a practice of intentional silence is non-negotiable. You just have to do it. There is a universal affirmation that this form of spiritual practice is essential to spiritual awakening.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 9

Both Ordinary and Spiritual Awareness are necessary for functioning in this world. But the idea in spiritual transformation is to integrate and re-prioritize these levels so that our ordinary awareness is in alignment with and in service to our spiritual awareness (which in turn, as we have seen, is in service to the divine awareness). In that alignment our being flows rightly, from innermost out. When something needs to be done in the outer world, we have sufficient ego strength to do it. But unlike ordinary awareness, which is always doing things to assert itself or fulfill itself, action grounded in our spiritual awareness merely flows out of the Divine abundance without regard to outcome or any need to draw attention to itself.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 14. 

Thomas Keating suggest the false self as a modern equivalent for the traditional concept of the consequences of original sin. Beginning in infancy each of us, in response to perceived threats to our well-being, develops a false self: a set of protective behaviors driven at root by a sense of need and lack. The essence of the false self is driven, addictive energy, consisting of tremendous emotional investment and compensatory “emotional programs for happiness,” as Keating calls them.  It is our false self that we bring to the spiritual journey; our “true self” lies buried beneath accretions and defenses. In all of us there is a huge amount of healing that has to take place before a deep and authentic quest for union with God-which requires tremendous courage and inner presence to sustain-establish the pull of my psychological woundedness. This, in essence, constitutes a spiritual journey.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 94-95

The classic emotional programs for happiness as security/survival; esteem/affection; power/control, which comprise the basic building blocks of the false self system. They are called energy centers because unconsciously a huge amount of our psychic energy is bound up in identification with these programs these unconscious programs percolate in the consciousness in the form of attachments in the versions. Attachments are things you need to feel safe and comfortable; versions of those things that push your buttons. These attachments and versions, semi conscious and mostly cloaked in self justification, virtually guarantee that we will enter situations in life with hidden values, as are called on the diagram, or, hidden agendas. There seems to be a karmic law that hidden agendas will attract their corresponding triggering of that or troubling situations.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 136-138

The Four Spiritual Senses. Little by little, as the monk perseveres in Lectio Divina, his understanding progresses through a series of stages: from the literal (preoccupied with linear causality and facts and figures) through to intermediate stages (known in the tradition as the moral and allegorical), which develop the powers of the imagination and begin to engage the personal unconscious. The fourth and final stage is known as the unitive. At this stage one is fully using the more subtle perceptivities of spiritual awareness – the spiritual senses, as they’re known-to see and taste the presence of the divine as it moves fully in and out of everything. It is Unitive in the sense of seeing the one beautifully and radiantly illuminating the multiplicity, like light pouring through a Stained Glass window, present in both the unity and diversity. At the unitive level Christianity is all heart-and in this unitive seeing, deeply mystical and poetic. Christianity becomes radiant with the flame of its own innermost truth, like the bush that Burns but is not consumed.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 72

The term attention of the heart comes from Simeon the New Theologian, who lived 1000 years ago. Presence or Attention to the Heart is the capacity to be fully engaged at every level of one’s being: alive and present to both God and the situation at hand. Simeon sees clearly that ordinary awareness is incapable of carrying out the gospel. Only when the mind “is in the heart,” grounded and tethered in that deeper wellspring of spiritual awareness,  is it possible to live out the teachings of Jesus without hypocrisy or burnout. The gospel requires a radical openness and compassion that are beyond the capacity of the anxious, fear-ridden ego.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 117. 

A life of continuous surrender brings about a profound transformation in the psyche: a deepening and gentling of the human being. Cynthia Bourgeault,

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 166

Boehme sees the mind as a kind of lens or magnifying glass that, in the freedom of the human will, can be turned in two directions. It can be held before the divine mind, so that it "magnifies the Lord," in the words of the ancient canticle, or it can be turned in so that it reflects and focuses on itself; it essentially becomes its own light. Only when that lens is "resigned," held steadily up to reflect divine light, is there the possibility for the emergence of the true being of the soul, which is love. To be in the will of God, to be in the resigned will, is an immediate and direct opening, at an energetic level, to the Source of all being. It is a commitment not to turn the lens inward, not to break connection with that eternal "hearing, seeing, and speaking.”

Cynthia Bourgeault, Boehme for Beginners, Gnosis Magazine, Fall 1997

"Wholeness is born out of the acceptance of the conflict of human and divine in the individual psyche," writes Helen Luke in a passage I have been much taken with. But this acceptance — and hence the emergence of the elusive "Real I" — is in fact a breaking forth into a new dimensionality of myself through my yielding. This makes the practice of surrender not at all a dreary exercise in acquiescence, but a bold participation in God's ongoing creativity in love. Only in resignation do I become truly fertile unto myself, the good ground of transforming love.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Boehme for Beginners, Gnosis Magazine, Fall 1997

Contemplative prayer does provide relief from the false self and healing of the “emotional wounds of a lifetime.” But even more powerfully, as modern neuroscience has increasingly confirmed, it begins to restructure the brain, changing not what one thinks but how one thinks. This restructuring, in turn, paves the way for the emergence of Christianity at the level of “Christ consciousness”: non-dual, non-judgmental, compassionately seeing the mutual indwelling of all things in the mystery of divine love.

Cynthia Bourgeault, intro to Beatrice Bruteau’s Prayer and Identity. 

Cynthia Bourgeault, in her commentary on Bruteau’s work below, says, “our locus of identity is constantly fluctuating back and forth along a continuum from constructed to unboundaried.”

Find Part Two Here