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Contemplation In The City, July 2026

Hello, friends.

July 22nd is the Feast of Mary Magdalene, a day honoring the woman who is, arguably, the most magnetic, misunderstood and maligned in the gospels. Her essential mystery, and unanswered questions, have led in recent times to her being coopted by many factions for many purposes. Today, Mary Magdalene is a whole cottage industry, showing up in movies, TV, books, trading cards and video games.

Who Mary is to us—sinner or saint, virgin or whore, apostle or afterthought—probably depends on the church tradition we grew up in, as well as our own modern preferences, predilections and prejudices. But what can we know about the real Mary Magdalene? What wisdom might we mine from her story? And why is she often depicted holding an egg?

More on that below. But first, a preview of upcoming events. Before heading to Northern Ireland soon to learn about the ongoing process of peace and reconciliation in that still-fraught region, I will be back in Austin briefly and hosting a contemplative service on Aug. 4. I’d love to see you there. Other upcoming events from us and our good friends at Metanoia Journey

Aug 2, 10-11:30am: In-person monthly contemplative gathering (Metanoia Journey)
Aug 4, 6-8pm: Contemplative service, 6pm coffee/conversation, 7pm service (CITC)
Aug 23, 11:15am: Celebrate Pride with joy, fun and great music (LITC)
Sept 6, 10-11:30am: In-person monthly contemplative gathering (Metanoia Journey)
Sept 8, 6-8pm: Contemplative service, 6pm coffee/conversation, 7pm service (CITC)

More ink has been spilled over Mary Magdalene than any other woman in the Bible besides Mary the mother of Jesus. This despite the fact that compared to, say, Peter her biblical appearances are few. What is there, however, is tantalizing and has been fuel for two thousand years of spiritual speculation.

So, what can we know for sure? The truth is, not much. Mary may have been from Magdala, a commercial fishing town on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. Or “Magdalene,” from the Hebrew word for “tower,” may be an honorific—a sign of the exalted place Mary the Tower held in Jesus’s life and ministry.

The first mention of her comes in the Gospel of Luke:

There were also some women in their company who had been healed of various afflictions and illnesses: Mary, the one called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out; Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s manager; and Susanna—along with others who used their considerable means to provide for the company.

Even in this brief passage, I think we begin to get a sense of Mary: a woman, obviously, of some financial means, who showed up and participated in the community and the awakened life Jesus was trying to lead people into. She was fully invested.

But Mary was also troubled, as evidenced by Luke’s use of the number seven, which in the Bible nearly always indicates something total and complete, for better or worse. Whatever her “demons”—spiritual, psychological, physical—they were healed through an encounter with Jesus.

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The evidence that follows this introduction in Luke is that Mary Magdalene was part of Jesus’s inner circle. If we then take into account what we learn from the non-canonical gospels of Philip and Mary, there emerges a portrait of a woman who may have been not just Jesus’s star pupil—the one who best understood the heart of his teachings—but his most trusted confidante.

There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary his mother, her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion…Christ loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often…The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, 'Why do you love her more than all of us?' Gospel of Philip

Peter said to Mary, ‘Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us his words that you remember—which you know but we do not, nor have we heard them.’ Mary answered, ‘What is hidden I will proclaim to you.’ Gospel of Mary

Where Mary really shows her uncommon mettle is in the dramatic last day of Jesus’s life and the immediate aftermath. Here she is, present at the cross in the hours of his agony, at the transport of his body to the graveyard, and there again days later when she finds his tomb empty.

For this, author and theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber calls Mary the Patron Saint of Showing Up:

Showing up means being present to what is real, what is actually happening. Mary didn’t necessarily know what to say or what to do or even what to think…but none of that is nearly as important as the fact that she just showed up. She showed up at the cross where her teacher Jesus became a victim of violence and terror. She looked on as the man who had set her free from her own darkness bore evil and violence upon himself—and still she showed up.

I would also like to crown Mary with another title: Patron Saint of Letting Go. For it is in her final scene in the Bible that she offers a lesson about release and surrender, good for all time, for all people, everywhere.

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You may recall that on the Sunday after Jesus’s execution, Mary goes to his tomb only to find it empty. When she begins crying, someone standing nearby asks what is wrong and who she is seeking. Thinking it is the gardener, she says that if he has moved Jesus’s body, to please let her know where it is. Then Jesus says her name (a gorgeous, tender moment) and she recognizes him. Crying out, she grabs on to him. But rather than allowing her to savor their reunion, Jesus says, “Beloved Mary, you must not cling to me.”

And here’s something interesting: the word we translate in English as cling, in the original Greek of the gospels is haptomai, which has the sense of holding onto something for one’s own benefit or one’s own sake. So, what I get from this is that Mary was holding onto Jesus out of her own desire to feel safe and certain. Which, of course, is completely understandable. She’d lost Jesus once; she didn’t want to lose him again. But her hold was a fearful grip on the past at exactly the moment Jesus needed her to walk bravely into the future:

Don’t cling to me, for I must go to my Father who is also your Father; my God who is your God. Go now, and tell our friends all you have seen.

Jesus sent Mary out as the first witness to the most incredible mystery, and to spread the news that the worst thing is never the last thing, and love has conquered death. But for that to happen, Mary had to let go. She had to literally surrender her grip on all she knew and counted on to be true, and walk into a new, unknown life, as difficult and as scary as that was.

And she does just that:

She left the garden then and went and told everyone what she had seen.

When I meditate on this story I think about how probably all of us, all the time—somewhere in our lives—are probably in that liminal space between latching on and letting go, between an ending and a beginning, being and becoming. Life is flux and flow.

The question I ponder these days is, how do we accept that flux and embrace the flow and release our grip on certainty which always leads to stasis? How do we turn our gaze from the life in the rearview mirror to the one ahead of us that might not feel or even be safe and certain in any way we would like it to be, but which is pregnant with possibility?

I think what gave Mary the courage to let go, finally, was love. In her time with Jesus she had discovered she was part of something so much bigger than herself, so much greater than her success or reputation or relationships. She had come to trust what I pray we all do at some point: that her life had always been held by and in a love whose depth and breadth knows no bounds. And in the end, that love gave Mary the courage to let go.

So, friends, if you are looking to honor Mary on this feast day, maybe light a candle for her, offer gratitude for both her showing up and letting go, and meditate on these questions:

What do you need to let go of? 
What are you clinging to that you might place into God’s hands? 
What long-held fear? 
What striving, what story—about yourself and others—can you surrender?
What resentment put to rest? 
What forgiveness found?
Where can you relax your grip and make room for a miracle?

I pose these questions knowing full well that letting go is never easy or comfortable. More often it feels like the tomb Mary found herself in that morning two thousand years ago—like standing in an empty space where something used to be, not yet sure what comes next.

But in that space of release and unknowing is where new life begins.

That’s where Mary found herself, and that’s where she was sent out from. May we also have the courage to let go the way she did, so that we, too, can move deeper into a life of love that opens, and opens, and opens.

Until next time, may grace and peace be yours,

Greg Durham

P.S. You may wonder why Mary Magdalene is often depicted holding an egg. An Eastern Orthodox tradition holds that after Jesus's resurrection, Mary went to Rome to see Emperor Tiberius Caesar to whom she protested that Pontius Pilate

had executed an innocent man. Since anyone appearing before the emperor was expected to bring a gift, she brought a plain, ordinary egg. When she met with Tiberius, she held it out, and declared, "Christ is risen!" Tiberius scoffed, saying her claim could no more be true than the egg in her hand could turn red. At that moment, the egg supposedly turned bright red.

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Contemplation In The City meets next on Apr 28, at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Arrive between 6-7pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts an hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, May 2026

Good morning, friends.

I come to you from New Brunswick where I’ve come for a week of lectures at St. Stephen’s University—proudly the littlest university in all of Canada. The school is in a charmingly dilapidated 19th-century mansion with creaky staircases, over-burdened bookshelves, reading rooms with cushy chairs and, maybe, ghosts. I’m an early riser, and on mornings here I love to grab my coffee from the dining hall then take up residence in a tucked-away corner of the manse. Here I stay, forgotten by the busy world, until the sun rises and my classmates arrive for breakfast. The feeling I get during these pre-dawn hours is captured by the last line of Wendell Berry’s classic poem The Peace of Wild Things: For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Rest, grace and peace were on my mind recently as I read Paul Kingsnorth’s Against The Machine: On The Unmaking Of Humanity (which I wrote about in March’s newsletter). In this cri-de-coeur against our hyper-technologized world that is robbing us of our peace and personhood, Kingsnorth devotes a chapter to shatter zones: areas inhabited by the hill tribes of Southeast Asia who actively reject absorption into the “valley culture.” Though none of us reading this are likely to remove ourselves from modern culture like the hill tribes have, Kingsnorth says it is urgent that each of us carves out shatter zones in our own lives—times and places beyond the reach of phones, algorithms, social media, 24-hour news, and everything else that has colonized and commodified our lives in recent years.

More on that below. But first, a preview of upcoming events, including a birthday party for Contemplation In The City which turns 3 years old this month. If you are in Austin, join us Tuesday, May 19th to celebrate. Coffee, cake and casual conversation at 6pm, contemplation at 7pm. Other upcoming events from us and our good friends at Metanoia Journey:

May 19, 6-8pm: Contemplation In The City turns 3. Celebrate with us! Details below.
May 24, 11:15am: Pentecost service (LITC) 
June 7, 10-11:30am: In-person contemplative gathering (Metanoia)
Telluride retreat

Between 2001 and 2007 I traveled extensively through the mountains of Southeast Asia where I stayed with various hill tribes: the Hmong and Red Dao of Vietnam, the Lahu of Thailand, and the Semai of Borneo. Anthropologists call this area Zomia—a remote upland peopled by those who have “historically been beyond the control of governments based in the lowlands.”1

Viewed through lowland eyes, these widely dispersed tribes appear to be left behind—some remnant from ancient days before the growth of valley cities and towns. In his 2009 book, The Art of Not Being Governed, James C. Scott claims the contrary:

…hill peoples are best understood as runaway, fugitive communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppression of state-marking projects in the valleys—slavery, conscription, taxes, epidemics, warfare. Most of the areas in which they reside might aptly be called shatter zones.

Over time, these hill people have formed small-scale, hard-to-reach communities—so-called shatter zones—that defy assimilation into the dominant culture. According to my counseling teacher Dr. Walter Thiessen in his book Glimpses Of A Good Life: Rhythms And Practices That Invite Wholeness, this dominant culture…

teaches us the language of individualism and consumerism. This language encourages us to understand that our needs can be met by products and that meaning can be found in services that we shop for. Psychotherapists (of which Walter is one) become our secular priests and talk shows provide our gurus.

In Against the Machine, Peter Kingsnorth urges us to take a cue from the cultural refuseniks of Zomia and release ourselves from our addiction to constantly feeling like we need to be doing something “productive” (as judged by the marketplace mentality) to justify our lives. Of course, few if any of us could go live in whatever the western version of a geographical shatter zone would be. But this doesn’t mean we can’t create mini-shatter zones in our own lives, homes and hearts.

What would this look like? Each person must consider this for themselves, ultimately. But perhaps, by answering the following questions, you may find yourself pointed in a direction to create your own shatter zone: What parts of modern life do you find dehumanizing, or do you suspect are doing you more harm than good? The political/cultural climate? Technology? Social media? What makes you come alive and how can you do more of it? What doesn’t bring you life, and how can you do less of that? Where would you like to give and get more presence and peace?

Here are some ways I’m trying to create shatter zones in my life right now:

Phone-free zones: Remember the days when there was one phone for the whole house? Ours was in the kitchen. I miss that. I think phones are killing us. Maybe that sounds hyperbolic. I don’t think it is. They’re killing attention spans, presence and common courtesy. Unless I have a timely need, I refuse to look at mine for the first couple hours after I am awake and the last couple hours before bed. It is banished from mealtimes in my house, and most days I leave it in the kitchen. It’s still within earshot, but not right next to me. This has helped me reduce anxiety, fragmented attention, and my compulsion to treat every text like it needs an urgent response.

No-shopping days: Just as I’ve carved our phone-free zones, I have one day a week, usually Sunday, when I intentionally refuse to spend money. This is less about not buying things than it is embracing a Sabbath spirit that is able to resist our relentless commercial culture. And speaking of Sabbath…

Sacred time: my ex’s family was modern Orthodox Jewish and, for them, Sabbath was non-negotiable. When we visited on shabbat, time stood still. We didn’t shop, drive or answer phones. Instead, we rested from any demands of life that were not home-centered. I loved it. What a gift it was to set aside one day to honor the preciousness of time, and to remember the necessity of rest and community. Since then I’ve tried to maintain a weekly Sabbath. Twenty-four hours is ideal. Often, however, I fail to make this happen. When I do, I will carve out a few hours in a day—time apart from email, text and calls, with time given to reading, writing and walks. As with the shopping, this isn’t as much about rest as it is resisting a culture that measures the value of everything—you and me included—by what it produces. In other words, this is Sabbath as resistance.

These are just a few of the ways I am trying to create shatter zones in my life, but there are so many more ways to do it. If you’re also setting aside parts of your life for protection, I’d love to hear how you’re doing it. Feel free to email me at greg@litcaustin.org or leave comments below.

In the meantime, wherever and however this finds you, I pray that freedom, beauty and peace may be welcomed into your life.

Greg Durham

Pair the above reflection with…

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Upcoming Events

Contemplation In The City turns 3 years old this month! Celebrate with us, Tuesday, May 19th. Coffee, cake and conversation from 6-7pm, contemplation from 7-8pm. Like cake and not contemplation? Come for the first half. Can’t make it early but still want to meditate? Come for the second half. 205 East Monroe St. in Austin.

***Note that CITC will be on break for June and July. We will resume meeting on Tuesday, August 4.***

***It’s not too late to sign up for our Telluride retreat. We’ve got two spots left! Info below:***

This June 7-11 I am co-leading a retreat in Telluride CO alongside Adam Luedtke from Contemplate Lincoln. The retreat is for anyone who is already practicing contemplation, as well as those who aren’t but who would like to learn in a small-group, restful environment which also happens to be one of the most beautiful places in North America! In other words, it’s for everyone! Official cost is $750, but Adam set aside a variety of scholarships. If you’re interested, email me at greg@litcaustin.org and I can see about getting you a code. Note that this price includes four nights in a hotel, all the retreat programming, and lunch on each day. This is a steal for Telluride in the summer. Space limited to 15. Register here. **Also note that when searching flights, you will want to come into either Montrose (MTJ) or Durango (DRO). Don’t search flights for Telluride.

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Contemplation In The City, April 2026

Good morning, friends.

Today’s newsletter—and possibly next month’s—will be a bit shorter than usual as I muddle my way through a season of preaching, school work, retreat-planning and travel. In June, my load should lighten. At that time, look for the newsletter to return to its normal length.

In the meantime, I’ve recently returned from Discovering Renewal in Montreat, NC and my heart is still full. It’s been amazing to watch over the last five years as this annual gathering—started by author, activist and theologian Brian McLaren—has coalesced into a true community of spiritual seekers coming together from all over for fun, friendship and much-needed rest from the hustle and hurry of the world. If you’ve never been, I highly encourage you to give it a try. Mark your calendars now for next year’s gathering, Mar 29-Apr 2, 2027.

One thing Discovering Renewal, and places like it, always reminds me of is how very little I need, especially as I seek to live a more contemplative life. Right now I am in a phase of scaling back instead of up. Care to join me? If so, read on.

But first, a preview of upcoming events including a musical sermon on the Prodigal Son on Apr 26, our next contemplative service on Apr 28, a Telluride retreat this June, Contemplation In The City’s 3rd birthday, and more happenings from us and our good friends at Metanoia Journey.

Apr 26, 11:15am: Prodigal Son musical sermon (LITC) 
Apr 28, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7 (CITC)
May 1, 7-8:30pm: Community Song Circle (LITC)
May 3 and 17, 10-11:30 am: In-person contemplative service (Metanoia)
May 19, 6-8pm: Our 3rd birthday! Come celebrate with coffee, cake and conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC)

One of my constant companions is a pocket edition of the Tao Te Ching (translated by Stephen Mitchell). For years I’ve carried it everywhere, along with my pocket New Testament, my copy of Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation, a trusty Field Notes notebook for scribbling random haikus, and a Blackwing pencil.

Usually, after reading a gospel passage during my morning meditation, I open the Tao at random. It’s amazing how often what I find there echoes the spirit of something I’ve just read in the teachings of Jesus (these parallels are long remarked-up; legend has it that Emperor Ming of Han, on learning about about the way of Jesus, called him “the first Taoist”). To me, this speaks to the universal nature of wisdom in all times and traditions.

Flying to North Carolina for Discovering Renewal a couple weeks ago, I opened the Tao to land on verse 48:

In the pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added. 
But in the practice of the Tao, 
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone. 
True mastery can be gained 
by letting things go their own way. 
It can't be gained by interfering.   

This was just what I needed to hear that morning. Here I was on my way to lead a retreat about rest and renewal and instead of being relaxed I was stressing about all the practices I wanted pack in to make sure everyone coming got their money’s worth. The Tao reminded me to cool my heels—to pare down, not pile on.

…nothing is left undone.

I need this reminder often. I think many of us do. The marketplace bombards us with messages that we always need more, more, more. Buy more, do more, become more. I’m sorry to say that contemplative spaces are not immune to this mindset. I can’t tell you how many spiritual self-improvement books I’ve been recommended, and bought, over the years—how many apps I’ve downloaded because they promised to help me meditate, pray or fall asleep, how many videos I’ve watched promising hacks leading to wholeness and well-being—when what I most needed was to just do what all wise women and men have been doing forever: sit in silence and stop striving in order that I may receive.

Less and less do you need to force things...

Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. (Matthew 6:6, Message translation)

Striving and its twin, accumulating, are two of the great enemies of the good life. They thrive in our feelings of not-enough and never-enough. Which brings me to the gospel passage I read on the plane just before opening the Tao:

Behold the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin. (Luke 12:27)

I love what Jesus calls us to here—to just “Behold!” He doesn’t tell us to analyze the lilies, or try and improve upon them. Certainly he doesn’t say to pick them or try capturing them for eternity. (If this gospel story was happening now I can imagine the disciples whipping out their iPhones to take selfies with the flowers and Jesus admonishing them to put those dang things away and just enjoy a long, loving look at the beauty all about them.) Just rest in awe and awareness! Just…behold!

Every day something is dropped.

That’s the enough we spend our lives searching for!

In the spirit of paring down, here is the one simple question I’m working with this spring: Where and how can doing less open the door to more?

If you’d like to join me in pondering that question and what it looks like on a daily basis, I’d be happy to hear what you’re coming up with by way of an answer. You can post in the Comments section below, or email me at greg@litcaustin.org.

I leave you with a prayer I wrote this morning, inspired by Tao 48. If it resonates with you, feel free to make it your own:

Gracious God, 
Loosen my grip on what I cannot hold.
Quiet my restless need to manage and control.
Teach me the wisdom of letting go.
Where I am closed and anxious, make me open and at ease. 
Where I am striving, make me still. 
Where I am forcing, teach me to trust the deeper current.
Help me to move with what is already moving,
to step into the flow,
to act without strain,
to rest in the unfolding of your gentle will.
Amen.

Grace and peace,

Greg

Pair with…

This Love Will Carry by Kathie Mattea and Dougie Maclean.

I was feeling low lately about the state of the world when my Counseling teacher at St. Stephen’s, Dr. Walter Thiessen, reminded me of this oldie but goodie from Kathy Mattea and Dougie Maclean. It helped me remember that we are all sustained and carried by Love, even as things fall apart.

Here are the lyrics, in case you’d like to follow along:

It’s a thin line that leads us and keeps us all from shame
Dark clouds quickly gather along the way we came
There's fear out on the mountain and death out on the plain
There's heartbreak and heartache in the shadow of the flame

This love will carry
This love will carry me
I know this love will carry me

The strongest web will tangle, the sweetest bloom will fall
And somewhere in the distance we try and catch it all
Success lasts for a moment and failure's always nеar
You look down at your blistered hands as turns another yеar

This love will carry
This love will carry me
I know this love will carry me
This love will carry
This love will carry me
I know this love will carry me

So these days are golden, they must not waste away
Time is like that flower and soon it will decay
And though by storms we're weakened, and uncertainty is sure
Like the coming of the dawn it's ours for evermore

This love will carry
This love will carry me
I know this love will carry me

Join us at Life In The City (205 East Monroe St., Austin) on April 26 at 11:15 a.m. for a very special musical sermon on the Prodigal Son. Greg Durham will take us on a journey through this oft-told tale of familial pain and redemption, interwoven with specially-selected music from stage and screen. This is Life in the City at its spiritually creative best!

This June 7-11 I am co-leading a retreat in Telluride CO alongside Adam Luedtke from Contemplate Lincoln. The retreat is for anyone who is already practicing contemplation, as well as those who aren’t but who would like to learn in a small-group, restful environment which also happens to be one of the most beautiful places in North America! In other words, it’s for everyone! Official cost is $750, but Adam set aside a variety of scholarships. If you’re interested, email me at greg@litcaustin.org and I can see about getting you a code. Note that this price includes four nights in a hotel, all the retreat programming, and lunch on each day. This is a steal for Telluride in the summer. Space limited to 15. Register here. **Also note that when searching flights, you will want to come into either Montrose (MTJ) or Durango (DRO). Don’t search flights for Telluride.

Contemplation In The City meets next on Apr 28, at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Arrive between 6-7pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts an hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, March 2026

Good morning, friends! Here we are on the cusp of spring. Recently I spent a week at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur where the wildflowers were in bloom, then returned to Texas to find the bluebonnets busting out all over. Even if winter has yet to release its grip where you are, my guess is you’re noticing the subtle shifts—less cold, more light, maybe even the first green shoots.

While at New Camaldoli I spent a lot of time in nature. With no cell phone reception or internet, there’s not much to do but walk, wander and read. I did a lot of all three. One book, in particular, I can’t stop thinking about is Against The Machine: On The Unmaking Of Humanity by Paul Kingsnorth. While I found points of difference with Kingsnorth, I share his core concern that we are being subsumed by technology at the expense of that which makes us human: our connections to one another, to culture, and to nature.

More on that below. But first, a preview of upcoming events including our next contemplative service on March 24, Discovering Renewal 2026, a Telluride retreat, and more goings-on from us and our good friends at Metanoia Journey.

Mar 24, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC)
Mar 28, 10am-2pm: Half-day Johnversation retreat (lunch provided). (LITC)
Mar 29, 11:15 am: Palm Sunday service. (LITC)
Apr 5, 10-11:30am: In-person contemplative gathering. (Metanoia Journey)
Apr 5, 11:15 am: Easter musical!! (LITC)
Apr 6-10: Discovering Renewal in Montreat, NC. 
April 28, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC)

In 1970, American writer Alvin Toffler argued that modern society was accelerating so rapidly—technologically, socially, and culturally—that human beings would soon struggle to adapt. He coined the term “future shock” to describe the spiritual disorientation and stress people feel when too much change happens in too short a time. Now, in Against The Machine: On The Unmaking Of Humanity, Paul Kingsnorth makes the case that what was once shock is now present reality. Things are moving faster than our minds, bodies and souls can handle.

The cause of this shock—and our disorientation—is what Kingsnorth calls the Machine: the systems of technological, economic, and ideological power (what the apostle Paul would have called the powers and principalities) that have reduced us to consumers who genuflect to the latest iPhone even as we abandon the ancient soil of our being. That soil, according to Kingsnorth, is the four P’s: prayer, place, people and past. Though our connections to all these are increasingly tenuous, by reinvesting in them we can regrow our roots and reclaim what it means to be human.

Early in the book, Kingsnorth quotes Simone Weil, who I also often quote (including in last month’s newsletter):

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. A human has roots by virtue of his participation in the life of a community which preserves particular treasures of the past and expectations of the future…Every human being needs to have multiple roots. It is necessary for him to draw the whole of his moral, intellectual and spiritual life by way of the environment of which he forms a natural part.

In other words, for the sake our souls we need to partake in the life around us.

Kingsnorth’s thesis is that in the modern age the Western world has disrupted the sacred order by dethroning the four P’s—prayer, place, people, past—and crowning in their place the marketplace which pretends to provide meaning but can really only provide an endless stream of disposable items. As for the four P’s, they aren’t just part of the culture, they are the culture. Without them, we may “have every gadget and recipe and website and storefront and exotic holiday in the world available to us, but we are lacking two things that we seem to need, but grasp at nonetheless: meaning, and roots.”

Prayer: According to Kingsnorth who is a fairly recent (within the past decade) convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, “We have turned away from a mythic, rooted understanding of the world, and turned away from the divine, in order to look at ourselves reflected in the little black mirrors in our hands.” Now we live in tiny, self-made worlds, aided and abetted by technology. Prayer (Kingsnorth’s general term for religion) allows us to step outside the Machine’s constant noise so we may participate in much-needed divine reordering. In that quiet attention that prayer requires, we remember that we belong to something larger than ourselves—a deeper, shared reality.

Place: In the gospel of Mark, there is an interesting nuance in the original Greek which I first learned about from Church of the Wild author Victoria Loorz. When we meet John the Baptist we are told that he baptizes people in the Jordan River. The Greek work for in is ἐν (pronounced en, like pen). Likewise, when John baptizes Jesus we are told this is in the Jordan River. But that’s the English. In the original Greek, the word for in switches here to εἰς (pronounced ice, like mice) which is more accurately translated as into. As Victoria says, εἰς/into is not positional but relational—akin to the difference of being from a place and of a place.

We all need to feel we are of a place. It is one of the keys to being rooted. Even if we live somewhere we weren’t raised, this does not mean we can’t be rooted. We can, in fact, grow where we are planted by simply getting outside and spending time in our environments. Just by going on walks or bike rides or sitting on the grass in our yards or a local park—by taking off our shoes and getting our toes dirty—we can begin to know once more the land beneath our feet and what it is to be not just in the world but of it.

People: In an era of curated identities, digital connection and political bubbles, real relationship is becoming more and more rare. And, trust me, as a parent, partner, pastor and longtime church-goer, I know that relationship is difficult. Building and sustaining embodied community is slow, inconvenient work. It asks a lot, and mostly presence and patience which seem to be our most precious human resources these days. But the truth is that we simply can’t live without one another, and the investment in our relationships pays outsized dividends.

Past: The Machine insists that new is always better. And maybe that’s true if you’re replacing a 1990s refrigerator with a more efficient model, or an unreliable car with one you don’t have to worry will break down every time you drive it. But new, if taken too far, also cuts us off from memory and tradition (not to mention fills up our trash dumps).

I see this in my more progressive wing of Christianity where innovation and “fresh expressions” are often prized over the ancient, tried and true. Not that there’s anything wrong with new. I’m no spiritual Luddite. But, to me, there’s something deep and timeless in the old prayers and practices. These are the connective tissue between the past and present. When I say the Lord’s Prayer, for example, I join all who have been saying it through joys and sorrows for millennia, and it feels like I am anchored in something older and more enduring than myself—like I am stepping into eternity.

There is much more to this book than I can explore here, but maybe that taste will give you some food for thought. If you’ve read this book, I’d love to know what resonated with you. Also, for my contemplative practices this Eastertide (April 5-May 23) I will be meditating, journaling and thinking about prayer, place, people and past. I would be happy for you to join me. If you have thoughts on these four P’s or the book and would like to share them, post in the Comments below, or email me at greg@litcausting.org.

Until next time, I wish peace and many blessings,

Greg

Pair the above reflection with…

A Prayer Among Friends by John Daniel

Among other wonders of our lives, we are alive
with one another, we walk here
in the light of this unlikely world
that isn't ours for long.
May we spend generously
the time we are given.
May we enact our responsibilities
as thoroughly as we enjoy
our pleasures. May we see with clarity,
may we seek a vision
that serves all beings, may we honor
the mystery surpassing our sight,
and may we hold in our hands
the gift of good work
and bear it forth whole, as we
were borne forth by a power we praise
to this one Earth, this homeland of all we love.

Contemplation In The City meets next on Mar 24, at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Arrive between 6-7pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts an hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Discovering Renewal: It’s not too late to sign up for the Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat, which I am leading alongside the amazing Nhien Vuong, author of The Enneagram of the Soul. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Track details here. Questions? Email me at greg@litcaustin.org.

This June 7-11 I will be co-leading a retreat in my home of Telluride CO alongside Adam Luedtke from Contemplate Lincoln. The retreat is geared toward those who work or lead in spiritual community (e.g. church) or caregiving (e.g. chaplaincy, hospice), and who are aspiring or already-practicing contemplatives, or interested in bringing contemplative practice into their community. Cost is $700 before April 1, $750 after. This price includes four nights in a hotel, all the retreat programming, and lunch on each day. This is a great deal for a mountain town in the summer. Space limited to 15. Register here.

Good morning, friends!

This month’s newsletter is later and shorter than usual due to a convergence of factors—an unanticipated uptick in church work, school obligations, and travel—but I did want to get something out, mostly because I’ve been chewing on something, and was curious about your thoughts on it. More on that below.

But first, a preview of upcoming events including our contemplative service tomorrow, Feb. 24, Discovering Renewal 2026, a Telluride retreat, a Johnversation retreat, and more goings-on from us and also our good friends at Metanoia Journey.

Feb 24, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC)
Mar 1, 10-11:30am: In-person contemplative gathering. (Metanoia Journey) 
Mar 24, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC)
Mar 28, 10am-3pm: Half-day Johnversation retreat. (LITC)
Mar 29, 11:15 am: Palm Sunday service. (LITC)
Apr 5, 10-11:30am: In-person contemplative gathering. (Metanoia Journey)
Apr 5, 11:15 am: Easter musical!! (LITC)
Apr 7-10: Discovering Renewal in Montreat, NC.

I was reading something for school recently and came across this quote from Simone Weil:

The grand enigma of human life is not suffering, but affliction. It is not astonishing that suffering happens. We know there are criminals who do horrible things. And we know that sickness can cause tremendous suffering for long periods of time, but this is the result of the indifferent mechanisms of the natural order of things. What is astonishing is that God has allowed affliction to have such power over the souls of innocent human beings.

What Weil is pointing to here, I think, is that age-old question: if God is all-powerful and just, why is there affliction and its inevitable by-product, suffering?

There’s no real answer to this, no matter what anyone will tell you. We can only wonder. And what I’ve been wondering for a while is not why is there affliction and suffering—I’ll let that mystery be—but more is God actually all-powerful?

For most of human history, affliction and suffering was understood as the response of an angry deity. This was certainly true in the Judeo-Christian tradition until relatively recently (unfortunately, this thinking still thrives in certain strains of church). Thankfully, most folks have moved on from that idea. But in moving on, some have replaced that answer with one that, while not as toxic, may not be that much of an improvement: God does not cause suffering—we do that—but God allows it.

Richard Rohr, my former teacher at The Living School—who I love and adore—was the first person I heard say this, about five years ago. In fact, he calls God The Great Allower:

God’s total allowing of everything has in fact become humanity’s major complaint. Conservatives so want God to smite sinners that they find every natural disaster to be a proof of just that, and then they invent some of their own smiting besides. Liberals reject God because God allows holocausts and tortures and does not fit inside their seeming logic.

Holocausts do not fit inside my logic, so by Richard’s definition I reckon I’m a liberal. Not because I reject God, however. I most certainly and emphatically do not. But I am uneasy with a God who allows suffering.

One of the explanations for God’s “allowing” is that this is just how love works. Love gives latitude. As a parent, I get this. You allow your kids the freedom to make mistakes. In fact, you’ve got to for them to grow. But, for me, a God who consents to the Holocaust or allows injustice—who allows the cross—is not a God I can wrap my mind around. And certainly not one I feel inclined to love.

Now, one can say God does not allow those specific things, but rather gives us the latitude to royally mess up. But the net result is the same. I give my son and step-son latitude to screw up, but if they were in danger of destroying lives, I would do everything in my power to stop them. To not do so would make me an accomplice. So, for me, a theology that says God can intervene but doesn’t makes God complicit in a whole lot of bad stuff. And I don’t like that.

So, what’s the deal with God’s power? Is it unlimited or not?

In thinking through my answer out loud here, let me first say that I am no Deist in the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson mold. I don’t think God is off somewhere having a smoke break while we make a mess of things down here. Since childhood, I’ve felt very powerfully the presence of God. I believe God is present as a force of creative love and light in every moment from now to forever, including in the most abject parts of history.

But what also feels true to me is that God needs us in some way. God needs us as partners to accomplish what God can’t by his own power. Partner how? Well, we walk around with God in us, so maybe what we’re called to is to guard and grow that God-piece of ourselves and help other people guard and grow it in themselves, and that somehow that adds up to something good—and that’s called life in Christ.

This came up last week in a course I’m taking called Gospel Christology, and I shared these thoughts with my classmates. My friend Tanya said that I sounded like Etty Hillesum. Now, anyone who knows me well knows that Etty is my girl. I read her journal (published as An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork) nearly every day. So, I wasn’t surprised to hear that I was parroting her. After Tanya said that, I went back through Etty’s journals looking for what she might have said similar. Here’s what I found—a journal entry from July 1942, written as the Nazi noose tightened and Etty faced her extinction with clear eyes:

One thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves…that we [must] safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.

Turns out Tanya was right. I was spouting Etty. But Etty said it first and she said it best and, most importantly, lived it with courage, conviction and integrity in a way we will never be called to do (and thank God for that).

So, is God all-powerful and allowing? Or limited to loving us through our suffering?

Again, these are unanswerable questions about unfathomable mysteries. We can say nothing about God’s nature with certainty. We can only know what feels true and beautiful, and trust that what’s true and beautiful is at least pointing us in the direction of a right answer. So, for me, I resonate with what John the Beloved said in his first epistle—God is Love and Light. We can’t exist without love and light. They are the source of life. Yet they cannot stop suffering. They can only sustain us through the suffering.

Thoughts? Feel free to share in the Comments.

Until next time, wishing you grace and peace,
Greg

Pair the above reflection with…

Mostly, the theology that makes sense to me is “let the mystery be.” Iris Dement wrote a great song about doing just that. Give a listen, below.

Contemplation In The City meets next on Feb 24, at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Arrive between 6-7pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts an hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Discovering Renewal: In April 2026, I will lead, alongside Kelley Weber, a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Track details here. **Please note, space on the Contemplative Track is limited to 20 people, and we sold out last year.** Questions about Discovering Renewal? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings (see events at the top of this email) including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month.

Coming Soon!

Thanks to the folks over at Contemplate Lincoln, I’ve got the chance to co-lead a retreat this June 7-11 in my home of Telluride, CO. This retreat is aimed at those who work, in some capacity, in ministry, church, spiritual community, etc. and who are interested in bringing contemplative practice into their community, or are already doing that. Registration is not open yet, but cost is estimated to be about $750 total. This includes four nights in a hotel, all the retreat programming, and lunch on each day. This is a great deal for a mountain town in the summer. I will post the link here next month. Space is limited to 15 people.

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Contemplation In The City, Jan. 2026

Good morning, friends! We are knee-deep in Epiphany which, this year, runs Jan 6-Feb 17. If Advent if about waiting for the Light, and Christmas the revelation of Light, Epiphany is an invitation to see the Light in and among us.

Seeing the light is tough these days. The world feels very dark. But lately, two people have been helping me see the light that abounds and surrounds us each day: Mr. Rogers and Nadia Bolz-Weber. I especially haven’t been able to get off my mind something I read in an old interview with Mr. Rogers, and which I think may be the best antidote to our current despair.

More below. But first, a preview of upcoming events including our contemplative service on Jan. 27, Discovering Renewal 2026, and a Centering Prayer Summit co-led by LITC’s Abi Robins.

Jan 24-25: Centering Prayer Summit, led by Cynthia Bourgeault. (more info below)
Jan 27, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC) 
Jan 29, 6-8pm: Dinner Church. Register here. (LITC)
Feb 1, 10-11:30am: In-person contemplative gathering. (Metanoia Journey) 
Feb. 6, 7-9pm: Community Song Circle. (LITC)
Feb 15, 10-11:30am: In-person contemplative gathering. (Metanoia Journey) 
Feb 24, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC)
Apr 7-10: Discovering Renewal in Montreat, NC. 

This past Advent, I wrote a piece on Fred Rogers. I wasn’t surprised when it became one of the most popular of the series. Mr. Rogers is a legend. In his life and work, he embodied what the world so sorely needs: kindness, compassion, care and, yes, light. Something he said in an old interview has particularly stuck with me:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world.

One day, a couple years before reading this, I was feeling anxious and dark. I was on my couch doom-scrolling my way through the news cycle. This cycle is relentlessly negative, designed to enrage, and geared to our basest human impulses. Studies show we are far more likely to click on stories we think will anger us, justify our dislike of someone, or reinforce an opinion we already hold. Part of this may be hard-wired, a primitive survival instinct. But we are not helpless before it. It’s 2026. We are no longer hunter-gatherers. We have choices.

In any case, on this day I was deep into the latest new outrage when, outside, I heard a kid crying. I jumped off the couch and rushed out. A neighbor boy had fallen off his bike. In the next minute, as a I picked him up off the ground, two other neighbors rushed out, one with a first-aid kit. Together we dried his tears, bandaged his scrape, gave him a snack, and soon he was zooming off on his bike again. Just an ordinary day on an ordinary street.

But when I went back inside, I noticed something: the murky, anxious cloud that had been hanging over my head was gone. The tight clenching in my chest had melted away. The world in my phone and on the news had seemed so unsafe and off-kilter. Now, in real time, and in the flesh, it had been restored to safety and balance.

This was a lightbulb moment for me. I suddenly knew that this one incident on my dead-end street must be replaying at that very moment all across my city. I thought of what I knew about my friends that day. One was taking her sister to chemo. One had made a meal for a new mom coworker. I thought of the guy who, earlier, had waved me into a turning lane in front of him when I had been in the wrong lane, though he could have easily assumed I was trying to cut traffic. I thought of the woman I saw walking around my neighborhood picking up litter. Everywhere, people were helping. And this was happening all across the globe!

When I read Mr. Rogers’ words last fall, I remembered that day. Mrs. Rogers had given her son a helpful life tool inspired by a simple truth—Look for the helpers; you will always find people who are helping. This is wisdom that is good for all time. It’s also, I believe, one of the great antidotes to the fear and despair that are spreading like a contagion these days.

I was reminded of Mrs. Rogers and her sage advice just last week when my friend Christina shared with me a conversation between Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber and author Suleika Jaouad (you can listen here). In this hour, they talked about their heightened awareness of the importance of, and need for, help and connection which we often only awaken to in difficult times (Weber and Jaouad both have cancer). In our lives, this looks like both the giving and receiving of care. Nadia, who has been in addiction recovery for a long time, had this to say:

In AA, if you have sponsor and you’re newly sober, you probably have a lot of crises going on. Your life is a mess, right? Lots of drama. And if you have a really good sponsor, they’ll listen to your drama on the phone for a few minutes and then they’ll go, “Alright, go find someone to be of service to. Go find somebody who has less sobriety who you do who your experience can help.”

This is the quickest way, Nadia says, to get out of our own heads. We all need so much help; we all have so much help to give. She then told a classic anecdote about Martin Luther who, when asked what he would do if he was told the world was ending tomorrow, replied, “I’d plant a tree.”

These everyday acts of hope and care are not insignificant. Quite the opposite. Making soup for your family, walking in nature, coffee with a friend, going to church on Sunday…just showing up and resisting the urge to laziness and disengagement—these acts are, Nadia says, the “resistance of the quotidian.” A lot of things these days might feel like they are, to quote the apostle Paul, ruled over by the powers and principalities of this present darkness. But these things aren’t. As Nadia says,

They have no dominion in my fucking kitchen. Not in my kitchen, Satan!

Where do you escape the dominion of the powers of this present darkness? Go there. What lies beyond those principalities? Claim it, nurture it, and do more of it.

Toward the end of the conversation, Nadia says,

Since my diagnosis, simple, sweet things feel much sweeter to me. The shit that doesn’t matter matters less. And there’s a mercy to that. Life is fleeting. None of us are promised another day. I try to notice. There’s so much beauty, and there’s a lot of care that people are putting into things. And that matters. I don’t think that being despairing makes the world better. It doesn’t.

There is so much beauty. So much care. Yes!!! I think what Nadia is saying is that the darkness is real, but it is not the only thing, nor is it the biggest thing. It has never yet been overcome by the light. And there is so much light!

So, if I may be so bold as to offer a suggestion, maybe this Epiphany make it a practice to look for the helpers. Notice the help. Be the help. Maybe the world is ending. But we can all still plant trees.

Until next time, I wish you grace and peace.
Greg Durham

Pair the above reflection with Look Up by Joy Oladokun.

Contemplation In The City meets next on Jan 27, at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Arrive between 6-7pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts an hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings (see events at the top of this email) including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month.

Discovering Renewal: In April 2026, I will lead, alongside Kelley Weber, a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Track details here. **Please note, space on the Contemplative Track is limited to 20 people, and we sold out last year.** Questions about Discovering Renewal? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org.

Join the 5th Annual Centering Prayer Summit. This two-day program is online, led by the amazing Cynthia Bourgeault, and co-led by many wise folks, including LITC’s own Abi Robins. Get more information or register here.

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Morning, friends!

This is the time of year when gratitude gets a lot of air time, in large part because it is embedded in the name of the holiday those of us in America will soon be celebrating: Thanksgiving.

Gratitude is a core value—perhaps the core value—of all the world’s major religions. The Bible, itself, contains more than four hundred passages calling us to rejoice, give thanks and offer blessings (while also warning of the spiritual blindness that comes from ingratitude). Then, of course, there is the vast amount of data released in recent years showing that those who center gratitude have longer, healthier, happier lives.

More on gratitude below, including recommended practices for this season. But first, a preview of upcoming events from CITC, LITC and MJ (Metanoia Journey), including our next contemplative service on Nov. 18, our Dec. Christmas musical, and an Advent retreat from Metanoia Journey. Also, I’m excited to share with the many of you who have been asking, that Discovering Renewal 2026 is now open for registration. More on these and other happenings further down this email.

Nov 18, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC) 
Dec. 4, 6-8pm: Dinner church. Register here. (LITC)
Dec 7, 10-11:3am: In-person contemplative gathering. More info. (MJ) 
Dec 13, 9am-3pm: 1-day Centering Prayer retreat. Register here. (MJ)
Dec 14, 11:15am: Make Room In Your Heart, an original Christmas musical (LITC)

Also, Advent begins in just a couple weeks. We are excited to be releasing our fourth annual edition of The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets. For a partial list of this year’s spiritual guides, see below. To receive this daily email from Nov. 30-Dec. 25, subscribe for free here.

It’s easy to forget here in the 21st century that Thanksgiving—and other similar celebrations around the globe—began as a harvest festival. Very few of us are harvesting crops these days, but we are all harvesting something. We are all always planting, nurturing and, finally and hopefully, reaping the rewards of our labor.

But what happened in pre-modern times when bad weather withered the crop in the field and harvest never came? Did they cancel gratitude? Not at all. Giving thanks was so ingrained in the pre-modern psyche that even when there was materially little to enjoy, the celebration carried on. In fact, when you read accounts of those lean years—or maybe listen to stories of old-timers in your lives—you’ll often hear that there was a special, tender joy amidst the lack.

I remember being surprised once when my great-grandparents told me their favorites Thanksgiving memories were from the Depression. Back then, they lived hand-to-mouth. Certainly there was no roast turkey, stuffing or cranberry sauce on a table piled with caloric excess like we are used to nowadays. There was, however, an overflowing of gratitude for what they did have, and the blessings they had taken for granted in better times.

Gratitude weaves like a golden thread through the Bible—in the building of altars and offering of sacrifices; in songs and psalms; in prophetic hope. Jesus began meals by offering thanks, even during the seder we now call the Last Supper when he felt death closing in. The apostle Paul began nearly all his letters by expressing thanks for the recipient.

Countless studies have measured the positive benefits of gratitude. In a 2018 white paper from the John Templeton Foundation, it was noted that a study of cardiac patients revealed that those with more grateful dispositions reported better sleep, less fatigue, and lower inflammation. Another study found that heart failure patients who kept a gratitude journal for eight weeks showed better outcomes. This is to say nothing of the countless psychological benefits, including increased well-being, less depression, less materialism, more resilience following traumatic events, and stronger relationships. Grateful people also report eating better and exercising more.

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that gratitude may play a role in longevity (incidentally, my great-grandparents who fondly remembered the Depression both lived into their nineties). What’s important to note, however, is that gratitude is not a one-and-done. A five-minute meditation may lift your spirits, but the effects are temporary. To change our lives, what’s needed is sustained practice so that gratitude takes root and becomes second-nature…an orientation.

So, in honor of Thanksgiving, I offer below a handful of practices I have picked up over the years. I have found that each leads me deeper into attention and presence, which are the gateways to gratitude. If you’re in the mood for a challenge, perhaps pick one or more off the list to practice daily between now and the end of the year, to see how how they might change you.

Be still: Ancient wisdom tells us we humans need quiet. Take time each day to just sit without doing. This can be a sustained meditation like centering prayer or breath work, or it can simply be time to just sit with your coffee and look out a window or around a room. Presence is the key. If you catch your thoughts drifting to the past or future, just bring them back to what is here, now, right before you.

Blessing: One of my favorite practices comes from Judaism: blessing at least 100 things a day. Traditionally, these blessings invoke God (e.g. Blessed are You who brings forth bread from the earth). But for those who don’t believe in God, or can’t spiritually connect this way, the practice of simply saying thanks for the people and things you encounter can be just as powerful (e.g. Thank you Jessica at Trader Joe’s for being so friendly; bless you, sun, for the warmth you provide on a cold autumn morning; etc.).

Write a note: Send thank-you notes often. Your thanks can be for something specific or it can be general gratitude for the gifts the recipient brings to the world. Text or email works, but hand-written is better.

Make your meals sacred: The good life is one lived sacramentally, with the rhythms of the day granted a kind of holiness. The most obvious place to pay attention to this is mealtime. In my family, each evening, someone dedicates the meal to someone. Then we light a candle. This is followed by a short reading—usually an inspirational or thought-provoking quote or passage. I so love this practice that I do it even when I’m alone. And, of course, phones are strictly forbidden at the table. Speaking of which…

Back away from your phone: The data is now clear: being constantly connected is contributing to skyrocketing rates of anxiety, sleep trouble, and difficulty concentrating. Simply put, we are not wired to be wired every second of the day. I know that the most peaceful times of my day are when my phone is off or in another room. For practice, pick time in your day when you can do without. Ideas: take a walk without your phone; keep it off for either the first or last waking hours of your day; commit to one period a week (e.g. Sunday afternoon) when you won’t use it. You’ll be amazed how free you feel.

Breathe: Have you ever been in a tense situation where someone has told you (kindly, of course), to just breathe? There’s a reason for this. Slow breathing has amazing benefits, and is the quickest way to center yourself and defuse stress and anger. For those new to this, you can simply try slowing down your breath. See if you can get to where you take no more than eight breaths per minute. If you’re having trouble with this, there’s a helpful practice found in Christianity where you breathe in the ancient holy name of God, Yahweh. As you inhale, whisper Yah and as you exhale, whisper weh.

Haiku: I started practicing this ancient, meditative Japanese art a couple years ago. Now, hardly a day goes by when I’m not scribbling a few lines in my notebook. Haiku asks us only to be present and notice what’s going on in and around us, and then to express that in the most uncomplicated way. For example, while walking in the woods recently I wrote: In fall, Queen Aspen/sheds gold coins as she moves toward/winter’s poverty. And here’s one I wrote as I thought about what food I’d send to school with my son, and what a privilege it is to do this each day, and be his dad: Packing Henry’s lunch/There is no need or blessing/Greater than this one. If you try this, remember the point of haiku is not to write a classic; it is simply to be present and to bring out what you notice.

There are, of course, countless other gratitude practices. If you have a cherished one you’d like to share, leave it in the Comments below. And if, for whatever reason, you can’t commit to one right now, then perhaps just practice saying thank you more often. As the great German mystic Meister Eckhart said:

If all else fails, just remember to say thank you as many times a day as possible.

Until next time, wishing you peace and every good,

Greg

Pair this reflection with…

Everything Is Waiting For You by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Advent 2025

Exciting news! Our 2025 edition of The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints and Prophets launches on Nov. 30 and continues to Christmas. This year’s list of spiritual masters includes Jarena Lee, the first female AME minister; John the Beloved who left us the Bible’s most mystical gospel; Olga of Alaska, a saint of lovingkindness on North America’s last frontier; Fred Rogers whose boundless compassion blessed generations of American kids; and many more. Subscribe for free here.

Discovering Renewal: In April 2026, I will once again be leading, alongside Kelley Weber, a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Track details here. **Please note, space on the Contemplative Track is limited to 20 people, and we sold out last year.** So, if you’re interested, sign up sooner rather than later. Cancellation with a full refund (minus $75 processing fee) up to Feb. 21, 2026. Questions about Discovering Renewal? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org. Also, if you try and sign up but the track is full, let me know as I may be able to get them to open more spots.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Contemplation In The City meets next on Nov 18, at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Arrive between 6-7pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts an hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org. 2026 dates will be announced soon.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings (see events at the top of this email) including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Questions or comments? Leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Morning, friends!

I come to you from Colorado where I am home briefly, before heading later this week to Austin, that other place I call home.

Yesterday, I had the joy of serving with my dear friend Peter Traben-Haas at Christ Church in Telluride. Peter recently published bis Contemplative Inner Transformation Version of the Gospel of John which I highly recommend. During the service we used it to read a portion of Jesus’s final teachings to his friends (which I’ll share below), where he bequeaths them wholeness and harmony.

Wholeness is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently and, if I’m honest, have been struggling to define for myself. Being rooted in two places that are, in many ways, polar opposites, and in which I often feel like I internalize that polarity , is wonderful but strange. As I pass back and forth between the two, I get the feeling I am putting together some psychological puzzle, arranging disparate inner pieces into the picture of myself that each location demands. There is Mountain Greg and there is Big City Greg. The former is an easy fit, the latter not so much. Living with this juxtaposition sometimes feels fine. Sometimes it feels confusing and heart-achy.

This isn’t bad. And it’s certainly not unique. We all inhabit various realms—personal, professional, familial, spiritual—and each brings out the beautiful and difficult parts of us. What I’m wondering these days is if those parts, which often feel irreconcilable as we move between realms, can be reconciled into a whole which feels, well…whole. What does being whole even mean or look like? And how can the wisdom of Jesus help us?

More on this below. But first, mark your calendars for our next contemplative service on Tuesday, October 21. Also, see below an important note about Advent. And here’s a list of other upcoming offerings from Contemplation In The City (CITC), Life In The City (LITC) and Metanoia Journey (MJ).

Oct 16, 6-8pm: Dinner Church. Sign up here. (LITC)
Oct 19, 10-11am: Final Johnversation of the year. (LITC) 
Oct 21, 6-8pm: Contemplative service. Coffee/conversation at 6, service at 7. (CITC) Oct. 23, 6:45-8:15am: Men’s morning walk along Lady Bird Lake. (MJ) 
Oct 25, 6-10pm: My Personality costume party. (MJ) 
Nov 2, 11:15am-12:30pm: Dia de los Muertos/All Saints celebration. (LITC) 
Nov 2, 10-11:3am: In-person contemplative gathering. (MJ) 
Nov. 18, 6-8pm: Monthly contemplative service. (CITC)

Also, Advent starts in just over a month. We are excited to be releasing our fourth annual edition of The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets. For a partial list of this year’s spiritual guides, see below in this email. To receive this daily email from Nov. 30-Dec. 25, subscribe for free here.

Before coming to Colorado last week, I spent eight days at St. Stephen’s University in New Brunswick where I am currently pursuing a Masters. It was my first time there in-person. While the week turned out great, it started a bit rough.

For the first couple days, I felt rather unmoored. I was not connecting to the people or place. This is not because both aren’t lovely. They are. Rather it was because, at first, I wasn’t sure who I was there. A student, yes. But I’m an Enneagram 2. If I don’t have a job with immediate and quantifiable results, a way to serve and feel helpful, I’m lost. I don’t feel whole. And sitting at a desk, receiving the teachings of my professors wasn’t quite doing it for me. (Big thanks to Carol and Mark who finally allowed me to help prepare breakfast each morning.)

So, I spent my first couple days feeling on the outside—not just of the group, but of myself. And the more I felt on the outside, the more I literally put myself on the outside, taking meals and walks by myself and going to bed early while everyone else stayed up late socializing.

Finally, on Canada’s National Truth and Reconciliation Day, all the Masters students went down to Indian Point and participated in a silent walk with the local Passamaquoddy people who have a long and close relationship with St. Stephen’s. There, drawn into the beauty of sky, trees and water, I began to feel the stirrings of coming back to, and into, myself.

Nature does this for me. It’s my gateway to health and wholeness, and always has been since I was a little boy. I think here of Rilke’s words to a young poet:

If you trust in nature, what is simple in nature, in the small things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble...everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps…but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.

The next day, beginning to feel more connected—more reconciled as Rilke would say—I reflected on why I hadn’t felt that days earlier. I think I just hadn’t found my place in the St. Stephen’s picture yet. I didn’t know at first which pieces of myself were wanted or needed in this new environment and, to be honest, which pieces of myself I should suppress (including the part of me that feels like the eternal outsider). On my third day at the university, as I felt my way through all this, I began to assemble a new version of me that could work for the setting: St. Stephen’s Greg!

I won’t go into details about what that looks like. But suffice to say that inhabiting that version of myself, in the past, would have been enough for me for that moment. It would have felt something akin to wholeness. At this point in my life, though, I am keenly aware that any version is just a part. As we reveal some parts of ourselves, others remain hidden. Nearly all of us are walking around a bit (or a lot) fragmented.

So, I was pondering the seemingly irreconcilable nature of our human natures when one of my teachers passed out this poem by Jan Richardson

A Blessing Called Sanctuary 

You hardly knew
how hungry you were to be gathered in,
to receive the welcome that invited you to enter entirely—
nothing of you found foreign or strange,
nothing of your life that you were asked
to leave behind or to carry in silence or in shame.

Tentative steps became settling in,
leaning into the blessing
that enfolded you, taking your place in the circle that stunned you
with its unimagined grace.

You began to breathe again,
to move without fear, to speak with abandon
the words you carried in your bones, that echoed in your being.

You learned to sing.
But the deal with this blessing is that it will not leave you alone,
will not let you linger in safety, in stasis.

The time will come when this blessing
will ask you to leave,
not because it has tired of you
but because it desires for you to become the sanctuary that you have found—
to speak your word into the world, 
to tell what you have heard with your own ears, 
seen with your own eyes, 
known in your own heart:
that you are beloved, 
precious child of God, 
beautiful to behold,
and you are welcome 
and more than welcome here.    

As usual, I felt like a poet was seeing right into my soul. Richardson had pinpointed my yearning in its fullness, and in just a few words: how hungry…to be gathered in; to receive welcome; to enter entirely.

Don’t we all crave this? To feel welcome and more than welcome?

To me, Richardson’s poem is a vision of the kind of wholeness I’d like to have and be. Not one made of uniform pieces, but of various pieces gathered into a unity.

That we live as both the one and the many, and have both the one and the many inside us is not a new idea. People as diverse as the great American 19th century poet Walt Whitman and the apostle Paul have been talking about it for centuries:

I am large, I contain multitudes. - Walt Whitman

For even as the body is one, it has many parts, and all parts of body, though they are many, are one body. - Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians

Another vision of wholeness came days later, in Colorado, when I was doing Lectio Divina with Peter Traben-Haas and he shared his translation of John 14:27-30, from Jesus’s final teachings. In this scene Jesus speaks to his friends who have followed him for the last three years, but who will very shortly have to move on without him:

Wholeness and harmony are what I convey to you; my very own wholeness and harmony…I give to you unconditionally. Do not lose your center or let your heart be disturbed. Certainly, do not be overcome with fear. You have heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ As you love me, rejoice with me that I am returning to the Beloved, because the Beloved is our Oneness.

As I meditated on this passage, I felt its insight begin to shimmer up from the depths—Jesus, through his example, had gifted his friends with wholeness and harmony, but not those things how we normally think of them. Jesus’s wholeness and harmony didn’t depend on reconciling outward circumstances or inward conflicts. Rather, they were gifts of love that helped his friends to know that they were welcome and more than welcome in this world and life with their contradictions and inner conflicts. Through their confidence in that, they found their center which could not be shattered or overcome by fear.

On a related note, Jesus has this to say in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas:

When you unite the different parts of you into one whole—when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below…then you have entered the kingdom.

This is not a picture of wholeness as perfection but as reconciliation—a gathering together of the various puzzle pieces that make each of us. Again, not uniformity but unity. These pieces don’t need to match. We don’t even need to have all the pieces. We just have to gather together what we have and lean into the blessing of all of it. Then maybe we can believe that we are welcome and more than welcome here.

Until next time, wishing you peace and every good,

Greg

Pair the above reflection with…

Lately I’ve been diving back into some of the non-canonical gospels and sacred scripture that did not end up in the Bible. Below is a 4-part, non-repeating Lectio Divina I prepared for our last contemplative service. The Jesus sayings are mixed and matched, and come from various translations of both The Gospel of Thomas and The Secret Book of John.

I am the Father, I am the Mother, I am the Son. The person who is near me is near the fire. I am the light that is over all. From me all came forth, and all is made. I am in everything. Split a piece of wood, I am there. Lift up the stone, and I am there. I am the one who is with you always.

Seekers should not stop seeking till they find the truth. When they find, they will be troubled. But trouble leads to awe and awe to wisdom. Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am; I myself shall become that person, and all that is hidden will be revealed.

When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known and you will realize that you are truly the children of the living God. Whoever does not know themselves knows nothing. But whoever knows themselves will come to know the depth of all things.

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. When you unite the different parts of you into one whole—when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below—then you have entered the kingdom.

Advent 2025

Exciting news! Our 2025 edition of The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints and Prophets launches on Nov. 30 and continues through Christmas morning. While this year’s list of mystics is still taking shape, it includes Jarena Lee, the first female AME minister; John the Beloved who left us the Bible’s most mystical gospel; Olga of Alaska, a saint of lovingkindness on North America’s last frontier; Fred Rogers whose boundless generosity and compassion blessed American airwaves for decades; and many more. Subscribe for free here.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Oct 21 and Nov 18. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings (see events at the top of this email) including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, Sept. 2025

Hello friends!

If you visit my house, one thing you will find in the kitchen is a quote jar. It’s like a tip jar, only full of time-tested wisdom instead of quarters. Everyone in the family contributes to it, and the quotes span the spectrum of time and human thought. Inside you will find sage sayings from Jesus, Carl Jung, the Buddha, Beyonce, Brene Brown, and everyone in between. Each night, as we sit down to eat, one of us draws a quote and reads it aloud. Then we discuss it during dinner.

For this month’s newsletter, I thought it would be fun to reach in the jar and draw out a fistful of random wisdom, and offer a brief thought on each selection. Then, I would love if you could offer some of your favorite quotes in the Comments section below—anything that sustains you, makes you think, challenges, comforts or gives you hope: a scripture, a lyric or line from a poem, something your grandmother or a favorite coach used to say. Anything goes.

More below. But first, mark your calendars for our next contemplative service on Tuesday, September 16. And here’s a list of other upcoming offerings from CITC, LITC and Metanoia Journey.

Sept 16, 6-8pm: Monthly contemplative service (CITC)
Sept 25, 6:45-8:15am: Men's morning walk along Lady Bird Lake (Metanoia Journey)
Oct 5, 10-11:3am: In-person contemplative gathering (Metanoia Journey)
Oct 11, 10am-2:30pm: Intro to Mindfulness Meditation workshop (Metanoia Journey)
Oct 21, 6-8pm: Monthly contemplative service (CITC)

Details further along in the newsletter. Also, if you find these monthly posts meaningful, subscribe and/or spread the word by hitting the Share button.

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Okay, I am now dipping my hand into the quote jar. Let’s see what comes out…

Feeling vulnerable, imperfect and afraid is human. It’s when we lose our capacity to hold space for these struggles that we become dangerous. Brene Brown

Ah, vulnerability. I think about this a lot—what it is, how to work with it, who’s allowed to show it and who’s not. As I enter my final years of child-rearing, I am trying to launch a boy who will meet the world with the emotional insight to know his feelings, the freedom to name them, and the courage to be vulnerable. I believe these are the keys to connection. And yet I am painfully aware that vulnerability is a quality which, even in this third decade of the 21st century, is rarely welcomed, encouraged or rewarded in boys (though there are glimmers of hope for change). Even as I have had to learn this openness, I am trying hard to model a better way for my son. Brene Brown has been a big help with that.

We found the Great Reality deep down within us. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

I read this one while researching an Advent reflection on Bill Wilson, the father of AA. To me it describes the quiet power of spiritual awakening. I think especially of the year or so after I started meditating, and the discoveries that happened in contemplation—the realization that the peace that surpasses all understanding which I’d been seeking was actually inside me, and available. Learning to look in, not out, was truly life-changing.

To know yourself, you must sacrifice the illusion that you already do. Veronika Wilde

This is one of the few quotes I have memorized. I repeat it like a mantra every morning. It reminds me that I don’t know much about anything—least of all myself!

The kingdom of God is with you and all around you. Jesus

Why should there be a reservoir when there is a flood everywhere? Krishna

In our house we call this a Daily Double—parallel wisdom from different traditions. With this one, I love the feel of spiritual immersion and abundance that comes through both Jesus and Krishna’s words. Remember those old Palmolive commercials: “You’re soaking in it!”? That’s exactly what Jesus and Krishna are trying to tell us. Stop looking for the Divine up there and out there. You’re soaking in it!

Don’t let schooling interfere with your education. Mark Twain

My son loves this one! It speaks to me because—with all due respect to the education system—I feel like the most important things I learned growing up (and still now!) were not learned in school but in settings where I was called to be relational and present: sharing a fresh-baked peach pie with my Granny; walking in the woods; listening in rapt awe to a new Bruce Springsteen record with my best friend. These moments taught me to be human.

You overcome death by dying. Caryll Houselander

This is another one I found through Advent. Houselander was a 20th century English mystic who had a gift for loving the most damaged, hard-to-love people. Her wisdom here is hard to hold, but it reminds me that clinging to what was, what is, or what I wish to be that never will, always holds me back from new life and possibility. To live, you must die. Every spiritual tradition has been telling us this from the beginning of time. And still, I resist!

Insist on connection. Terry Real

As most everyone knows, we are in a loneliness crisis. I am 100% convinced that connection is the cure. I experience this all the time. When I start to feel my heart tighten, and my soul grow small—when the world grows frighteningly dark—the cure is to connect. Call a friend. Have coffee with someone. Take cookies to a neighbor. There is no better medicine.

I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion: I need darkness as much as I need light. Barbara Brown Taylor

Another tough truth that requires trust to believe and patience to live with.

God is Love. Whoever remains in love remains in God and God in them. 1 John 4:16

I once did this thought exercise where I reduced the Bible—all two thousand pages—down to what could fit on the front and back of one page. This line made the cut. John’s claim that God doesn’t just give love, withhold love, or want love but IS love—along with his other claim that God is Light—is a needed counterbalance to the notion that God is some distant yet controllable Big Daddy in the sky. What could be more close, more life-giving, and less controllable than Love and Light?

I hope you enjoyed these. Remember to put your own favorite quotes in the Comments section, and I will add them to our jar.

Until next time, I wish you peace and every good,

Greg Durham

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Sept 16, Oct 21, and Nov 18. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. Questions? Contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. They are also leading an Intro to Mindfulness Meditation Workshop on Oct. 11. Details here.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, August 2025

Greetings, friends.

Here we are, the dog days of summer. In both places I call home, it is the warmest month of the year. Yet a subtle shift—a quiet hint of things to come—is in the air. This is especially true in the Rockies where the wildflowers, so riotously colorful just last week, have lost their luster, and the chartreuse aspen of May have softened into the silver-green of August—the first heralding of an autumn that still seems distant.

Speaking of aspen, I was just over in Utah to spend time in the Pando, the world’s largest and oldest living organism—a grove of thousands of trees that are also, improbably, one tree. My visit came the morning after my church back in Austin had been vandalized, and at the same moment a response to that vandalism was unfolding—a gathering in which many became one to meet destruction with love, life and new art.

More on this below. But first, mark your calendars for our next contemplative service on Tuesday, August 19. For those in Austin, I look forward to being back with you then (big thanks to Kevin Lawson for holding down the fort this summer). And here’s a list of other upcoming offerings from CITC, LITC and Metanoia Journey.

All Sundays, 11:15am-12:15pm: Weekly in-person service (Life In The City).
Aug 14, 6:45-8:15am: Men's Walk along Lady Bird Lake (Metanoia Journey)
Aug 16, 2-4:30pm: Community Outreach with Austin Bicycle Meals (Metanoia Journey)
Aug 17, 10-11am: Monthly Johnversation (Life In The City).
Aug 19, 6-8pm: Monthly contemplative service (Contemplation In The City); coffee and conversation at 6, contemplation at 7.
Aug 21, 6-8pm: Dinner Church (Life In The City)
Aug 24, 11:15am-12:30pm: Annual Pride service (Life In The City)
Sept 7, 10-11:30am: Monthly in-person service (Metanoia Journey)
Sept 16, 6-8pm: Monthly contemplative service (Contemplation In The City); coffee and conversation at 6, contemplation at 7.
Oct 11, 10am-2:30pm: Intro to Mindfulness Meditation workshop (Metanoia Journey)

Details further along in the newsletter. Also, if you find these monthly posts meaningful, subscribe and/or spread the word by hitting the Share button.

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Unlike the rest of the world, which celebrates Pride in June, Austin does it in August. This year, the start of our month was marred by vandalism. On August 1, someone shredded our rainbow flag, spray-painted “Pride was the 1st sin” at the front door, and punctuated that message with an Eastern Orthodox cross.

The day after, I was in Utah, hanging out in the aspen grove known as the Pando. I love aspen. To me, they are the teenagers of trees: fast-growing, gawky, exuberant show-offs that are, also, improbably resilient in their ability to bend-not-break in storms and high mountain winds. But what I find most magical is that they grow in families. An aspen forest only looks like a bunch of individual trees. In fact, it is a mutually life-supporting, life-sustaining relationship of many trees joined at the roots. What makes Utah’s Pando extra special is that, with more than 47,000 members, not only is it the largest aspen family in the world, at somewhere between 20,000 and 80,000 years (scientists disagree), it is also the oldest living thing on Earth.

Around late-morning on the day I went to the Pando, I pulled off the trail for a rest. I was leaning against one of the ancient trees, eating a peanut butter sandwich when my phone began to ping with pictures from Austin. While I was in Utah hanging out with the world’s biggest family, back in Texas my church family, along with friends and allies, was gathering with paint, brushes, ladders, and a determination to heal some hurt, while also doubling down on our longtime commitment to being a sanctuary of welcome, forgiveness and grace.

My friend Abi Robins, who was there that morning, wrote this beautiful reflection about what they saw and felt. What most struck me was this part:

As we gathered outside the church doors, members of our church community, plus friends, coworkers, members of other churches—I saw it. This grief and pain weren’t at my door, they were at our door. And that made all the difference.

I love that. Not my, but our. Abi goes on:

1 John 4:18 tells us, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…” Growing up I always read that verse as a litmus test for how much I really loved God. “If I really loved God, I wouldn’t be afraid right now.” But standing in the blazing Texas sun, sharing songs and communion with these beautiful people gathered to condemn hate and turn something ugly into something beautiful, it hit me. I wasn’t afraid anymore. The pain and confusion I felt had dissolved as I stood in loving community with my siblings.

The sharing and community Abi experienced are necessary to human and aspen thriving. Aspen grow too tall, too fast, many on steep mountainsides with unstable soil. A high-altitude creature, they must endure months of cold, snow and wind. They survive only due to their common roots. In this family system, they support one another by sharing biological resources. Younger members get extra helpings of sugars sent through the roots to help them grow. When one tree is injured by weather or disease, others send sustenance its way. When one is attacked, say by insects, it alerts its kin with chemical signals, leading the others to shore up their own defenses. And when a disaster like wildfire strikes down some or even all of a family, the roots preserve the life force. Typically, within a season, new shoots have broken through the ground and are reaching toward the sun.

Without family—without interconnected, mutual care—no aspen could survive. In other words, in the aspen world there is no me without we. And so it goes with us.

As I sat in the Pando, my phone kept lighting up with pictures of the undoing of the vandalism back in Austin. After a shot showing friends smiling as they wielded brushes and paint, I thought of one of my all-time favorite quotes, from 20th century French mystic Simone Weil (1909-43):

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.

Weil wrote this against the backdrop of rapid industrialization, mass migration from farms to cities, and political upheaval. What she observed was that, severed from their root systems, communities and individuals experienced a loss of meaning and purpose which no material gain could heal. I wonder what she would think if she had lived to see this century: wealthier yet lonelier; all the people in any given place on any given day—bars, airports, restaurants, even church sanctuaries—staring into their phones, together but alone.

The awareness that we thrive only in connection is not new. Spiritual leaders and philosophers have been telling us this for thousands of years. Take this prayer from Jesus in the Gospel of John:

Father, though the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

This knowing Jesus calls us to is not about information but relationship. He spent his entire ministry trying to convince those he encountered that true spiritual knowledge comes not through facts but love. Woe to the many versions of Christianity which have spent centuries overly-concerned with the former while too often neglecting the latter. And thank God for those who got it, including one of my favorite mystics, Catherine of Siena, who said:

The more I know, the more I love; the more I love, the more I know.

Only now is science catching up to what Jesus, Catherine and so many others always knew. Countless studies are proving that our social networks, the love we give and receive, and our willingness to show up—which is to say, our rootedness—not only relieve loneliness and stress, they lengthen our lives. This recent article reports on 25 years of longevity studies which found that super-agers—those over age 80 who show little to no cognitive decline—have one single thing in common: they all place the highest value on social connections, and then they live out that value. They choose coffee with friends over Netflix; they talk to cashiers instead of going through grocery lines on their phones; they play mahjong instead of doom-scrolling; they take walks without earbuds to enjoy the sights and sounds of nature; they show up on a Saturday morning to heal the hurt caused by a senseless act of vandalism.

Speaking of which, here is my church’s answer to the vandalism, a response rooted in love and grace:

As we wind down summer 2025, maybe consider: Where are you feeling the joy of rootedness? What parts of your life feel rootless? Do you wish to set down new roots, or maybe strengthen existing ones? What is stopping you, if anything?

Until next time, wishing you peace and ever good,

Greg Durham

Pair the above reflection with…

A Prayer Among Friends by John Daniel

Among other wonders of our lives, we are alive
with one another, we walk here
in the light of this unlikely world
that isn't ours for long.
May we spend generously
the time we are given.
May we enact our responsibilities
as thoroughly as we enjoy
our pleasures. May we see with clarity,
may we seek a vision
that serves all beings, may we honor
the mystery surpassing our sight,
and may we hold in our hands
the gift of good work
and bear it forth whole, as we
were borne forth by a power we praise
to this one Earth, this homeland of all we love.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Aug 19, Sept 16, Oct 21, and Nov 18. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. They are also leading an Intro to Mindfulness Meditation Workshop on Oct. 11. Details here.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Sun, Aug 17, 10-11am: Journey With John (aka Johnversations), a contemplative, conversational walk with the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through October 2025. Join any time.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, July 2025

Greetings, friends. I hope this finds you safe and well as we enter meteorological (if not actual) mid-summer.

Since our last newsletter, many of our friends have been tragically touched by the Central Texas floods. So much has been lost: lives, property, nature. The scale of the disaster boggles the mind. Yet so does the outpouring of support. In the less than two weeks since the floods, millions of dollars have been donated, material assistance has arrived from around the nation, and prayers have poured in (and we need more, so keep it coming!). Despite differences and divisions, one thing we seem to know how to do is pull together as a community in tragedy. I remember being struck by this when I lived in NYC, in the days after 9/11. The worst, somehow, brings out our best.

Of course, this begs the question Dorothy Day asked when she witnessed the same phenomenon in her San Francisco community after the devastating 1906 earthquake: Why can’t we live like this all the time? Something to think about.

More on community below. Also, if you’re in Austin during these dog days of summer, keep in mind that Contemplation In The City, Life In The City and Metanoia Journey can help you beat the heat at one of these gatherings:

All Sundays, 11:15am-12:15pm: Weekly in-person service (Life In The City).
July 19, 2-4:30pm: Join Metanoia Journey to help deliver meals, in partnership with Keep Austin Neighborly and Austin Bicycle Meals.
July 22, 6-8pm: Monthly contemplative service and feast day of Mary Magdalene (Contemplation In The City); coffee and conversation at 6, contemplation at 7.
Aug 3, 10-11:30am: Monthly in-person Sunday service (Metanoia Journey).
Aug 7, 6:45-8:15am: Men's Walk (Metanoia Journey) around Lady Bird Lake.
Aug 17, 10-11am: Monthly Johnversation (Life In The City).
Aug 19, 6-8pm: Monthly contemplative service and feast day of Mary Magdalene (Contemplation In The City); coffee and conversation at 6, contemplation at 7.
Aug 24, 11:15am-12:30pm: Annual Pride service (Life In The City)

Details on all these and more further along in the newsletter. Also, if you find these monthly posts meaningful or helpful, Subscribe and/or spread the word by hitting the Share button.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately. It started last spring when our Johnversation group at Life In The City read the story of the raising of Lazarus. For a guide we’ve been using Jaime Clark-Soles’ Reading John For Dear Life: A Spiritual Walk With the Fourth Gospel. In her chapter on Lazarus, Jaime spotlights a crucial detail I’d never before noticed.

Most of you know the story of Lazarus. His sisters, Mary and Martha, summon Jesus to their village when he falls ill. But by the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus has died. The sisters show Jesus to the tomb where he, first, weeps, then tells those who have been mourning with the sisters to roll the stone away from the grave. Once that’s done, he beckons Lazarus from the tomb. Here’s what happens next:

Lazarus came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to those present, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Did you catch that? Jesus doesn’t finish the job! Instead, he calls others to finish it. Lazarus’s true and final freedom from the tomb only comes when his community participates in the process—only when they love him back to life.

How did I miss that all these years?!

One person who understood the paradox of true personal/individual freedom coming through fellowship in community was Benedict of Nursia (480-547). Nowadays Benedict is known as the father of monasticism for his Rule which, 1500 years later, still forms the bedrock of monastic life. The key component of Benedict’s Rule is this:

When [a brother] is to be received, he promises…before all that he will live in stability...

By stability, Benedict meant that monks and nuns were not to run when their fellow monks and nuns irritated them. They were not to abandon hope in the communal project in the face of change and crisis. They were not to chase spiritual trends. Rather, they were to remain steadfast through the daily, challenging work of life together.

Benedict didn’t dream up this Rule as a scheme for keeping his monastery stocked with monks. He did it because he knew that the individual only comes to spiritual freedom and transformation through sustained, give-and-take participation in community—through what the late, great pastor and author Eugene Peterson called a long obedience in the same direction.

This call to patient transformation in community is hard for us humans. We’re prickly, prideful and prone to run at the first sign of trouble. Not only that, the patience required for waiting on transformation is antithetical to the modern mindset shaped by a consumerism that is, by design, self-centered and geared toward short-term satisfaction. Consider this classic commercial from Burger King:

That commercial calls up another dubious distinction of modern culture: not only do we want it our way, we want it our way now. The guy in that commercial is not waiting around for you to hold his pickles!

Unfortunately, this fast food mindset has infiltrated even our spiritual communities. Anyone who has been part of a church, synagogue or sangha for long enough knows what I’m talking about. In the course of a year I see dozens of new folks come through my church doors for the first time. Most stay for only a few visits, if that. Occasionally, later, I’ve had the opportunity to ask some of them why they stopped coming. The answers usually fall into three broad categories:

1. Didn’t like some aspect of the service (e.g. music).

2. Heard something in the sermon they didn’t like, or which triggered them.

3. Can’t commit to getting up on Sunday.

In Burger King terms, they want it their way, and we didn’t hold their pickles. Or, at least not fast enough.

This pains me because I know how sweet it can be to at least try and live into Benedict’s vow of stability. In his book Contemplative Church, my friend, Rev. Dr. Peter Traben Haas, describes it this way:

A vow of stability embraces the wisdom of remaining in one place and being shaped by the space and rhythms of life in that space…

The Psalms put it like this:

…a tree planted by living water yields its fruit in every season.

This happens even when you don’t know it’s happening. I was at my church for years before I realized how the community was transforming me. And it wasn’t happening because I loved everything about it, always agreed with everything, and had nothing better to do. Exactly the opposite! The transformation came precisely in not loving everything, not agreeing with everything, not wanting to shave on a Sunday, yet still showing up week by week, month by month, year by year, committed to the people and place, trusting that the path I was on was leading somewhere I needed to go, and if it turned out it wasn’t I’d at least know I’d given it time—then understanding, finally, that I was Lazarus, half-dead, and that this motley crew of folks I spent Sundays (and others times) with was somehow, someway, untying the rags that bound me and kept me from free, full and abundant life.

So, if I may be so bold today as to call for anything on this page, it would be less consumerism, more monasticism; less information, more transformation; and, please, less Burger King, more Benedict!

Where do you feel called to take a vow of stability?

Until next time, wishing you peace and every good,

Greg

Pair the above reflection with…

The Way It Is by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are July 22, Aug 19, Sept 16, Oct 21, Nov 18. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. They are also leading an Intro to Mindfulness Meditation Workshop on Oct. 11. Details here.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Sun, Aug 17, 10-11am: Journey With John (aka Johnversations), a contemplative, conversational walk with the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through 2025. Join any time.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, June 2025

Greetings, friends, from Colorado high country where I am on my annual summer migration. This is a strange and lovely time to be at altitude, when the difference of a thousand feet one way or the other brings you into radically different seasons—from sun-baked canyons to fields of spring wildflowers to snowy mountain basins. This nature is always a good reminder for me to be attentive to my own proverbial altitude. Where am I? High? Low? Or somewhere in-between? And how does this affect the changing weather of my heart, mind, body and soul?

Speaking of seasons, we are now in what the church calls Ordinary Time—the months stretching from Pentecost to Advent. Personally, I think of this as Extraordinary Time—a great opportunity to reflect on, and get present to, the gift of Pentecost, which is the Spirit poured out onto and into everything. More on this below.

If you’re in Austin, CITC and Metanoia Journey can help you (contemplatively) beat the heat at one of these gatherings:

Thurs. June 19, 6:45-8:15am: Men's Walk along Lady Bird Lake (Metanoia Journey)
Tues. June 24, 6-8pm: Contemplative service (Life In The City); coffee and conversation at 6, contemplation at 7
Sun. July 6, 10-11:30am: Monthly in-person Sunday service (Metanoia Journey)
Mon. July 14, 7-8pm: Conversation about the contemplative Gospel of John with author Jaime Clark-Soles. On Zoom. Email greg@litcaustin.org for details.
Tues. July 22, 6-8pm: Contemplative service and feast day of Mary Magdalene (Life In The City); coffee and conversation at 6, contemplation at 7

Details on all these and more further along in the newsletter. Also, if you find these monthly posts meaningful or helpful, spread the word to others who might also feel the same by hitting the Share button below.

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**Note that my son took the photos in this email. I’d originally planned to write a reflection that would’ve been a direct complement to them. Then something else came out. But since I made the promise to him, I’m keeping it. So, all photos courtesy of Henry Durham.**

I love provocative questions—not the ones with easy or definitive answers (e.g. How far is it to Amarillo? or What is guar gum doing in my ice cream?) but the open-ended ones. The timeless ones. The ones that truly matter and which invite us across a soul border and into new territory where we might find a treasure to help deepen our days and lives. Living questions, we might call these. It’s my opinion that we, as seekers, should be carrying around in our pockets at least one good living question at all times.

I’m of this mind especially during church holidays or special feast days (e.g. Pentecost, Epiphany, etc). Such moments can easily become rote. You hear the Christmas and Easter stories once, you know them, right? Wrong. These are bottomless mysteries. There is always another depth-dimension to explore.

For me, a great question is the best provision to pack on a journey into mystery. And few in history have been better at asking such questions than German mystic Meister Eckhart (1260-1328). For many Christmas seasons I’ve wrestled with his challenging inquiry:

What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I also do not give birth to him in my time and my culture?

Eckhart also offers a great Easter imponderable:

What if death is not the end, but the door?

The Bible is also loaded with great questions. Here’s just a very small sample platter:

Why do you seek the living among the dead? Luke 24:5

Who are you looking for? John 20:15

Do you want to be made well? John 5:6

And my personal favorite when I feel low or can’t see my way out of a situation:

Can these bones live? Ezekiel 37:3

Any one of those questions is worthy of being carried around in a pocket for a week or a month or a lifetime.

And speaking of church, we just passed Pentecost (June 8) and Trinity Sunday (June 15) and are now, until the start of Advent, in the unfortunately-named Ordinary Time. Now, before the seminary students start piling on, I know that ordinary here comes from the Latin ordinalis and has to do with the numbering of liturgical weeks, and does not mean mundane or boring or not-much-doing. And yet…we live in a modern, non-Latin-speaking world where ordinary means exactly those things. So, for myself, and on my own personal church calendar, I’m taking the liberty of calling this, and treating it as, Extraordinary Time

So what would be some great living questions for Extraordinary Time?

For a long while, I’ve returned to two questions nearly every day. The first is Mary Oliver’s famous line from her poem Wild Geese:

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I wake up each morning with this question on my heart (see my March reflection about passing this question on to my son). Then, however I answer it for that moment, or that day, I ask it again the next. I find I need to keep coming back to this question as a touchstone and reminder that life is, in fact, wild and precious—that wildness and preciousness infuse and make extraordinary what, otherwise, looks like an ordinary day.

The second question I’ve been asking myself for a while—one which gains more urgency with each passing birthday—comes from that great 20th century theologian and thinker Howard Thurman. It’s not a question, per se, but a directive that points to a question:

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

What makes you come alive? Now that’s a living question. That’s one to carry around with you for all the days of your life.

What are the living questions you’re carrying through your days right now? If you feel inspired, share in the Comments below.

As we move through summer and into the second half of the year, my hope is that we all pocket some great questions and spend at least a little time with them each day.

Until next time, wishing you grace and peace,

Greg Durham

Pair the above reflection with…

Ordinary Miracle by Sarah McLachlan

It's not that unusual
When everything is beautiful
It's just another ordinary miracle today

The sky knows when it's time to snow
Don't need to teach a seed to grow
It's just another ordinary miracle today

Life is like a gift they say
Wrapped up for you everyday
Open up and find a way
To give some of your own

Isn't it remarkable?
Like every time a rain drop falls
It's just another ordinary miracle today

Birds in winter have their fling
But always make it home by spring
It's just another ordinary miracle today

When you wake up everyday
Please don't throw your dreams away
Hold them close to your heart
'Cause we're all a part
Of the ordinary miracle
Do you want to see a miracle?

It seems so exceptional
That things just work out after all
It's just another ordinary miracle today

Sun comes up and shines so bright
And disappears again at night
It's just another ordinary miracle today

It's just another ordinary miracle today

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are June 24, July 22, Aug 19, Sept 16, Oct 21, Nov 18. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Sun, May 11, 10-11am: Journey With John, a contemplative, conversational walk with the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through 2025. Join any time.

A talk with Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles about the contemplative Gospel of John. Monday, July 14, 7-8pm on Zoom. Email greg@litcaustin.org for details.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

Share

Contemplation In The City, May 2025

Good morning, friends.

I am just back from a post-Easter pilgrimage to western North Carolina for Discovering Renewal 2025. It was my fourth year at this retreat, and I always return home feeling refreshed and revived. It helps that in that place this time of year the physical landscape—greening trees, blooming flowers, hibernating animals emerging from their sleep—mirrors the spiritual landscape of Easter. All around, what so recently looked dead is coming back to life.

Back in Austin, things are beginning to slow as we move toward summer. But CITC and Metanoia Journey still have a rich roster of upcoming events, including CITC turning two years old. If you’re in Austin the evening of May 13, join us as we add birthday cake to our usual menu of coffee and contemplation.

May 11, 10-11am: Monthly John-versation (Life In The City)
May 13, 6-8pm: Contemplative service; 2nd birthday (Life In The City); coffee and cake at 6, contemplation at 7
May 15, 6-8pm: Dinner Church (Life In The City)
June 1, 10-11:30am: Monthly in-person Sunday service (Metanoia Journey)
June 24, 6-8pm: Contemplative service (Life In The City); coffee at 6, contemplation at 7

Details on all these and more further along in the newsletter. Also, if you find these monthly posts meaningful or helpful, spread the word to others who might also feel the same by hitting the Share button below.

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Just before dawn on the Tuesday after Easter I found myself, along with a dozen friends, perched on Lookout Rock, above the village of Montreat. We’d all arrived in North Carolina from various points the day before, ahead of Discovering Renewal, an annual retreat most of us in the group have been attending since 2022. Despite staying up late, we met around 5 that morning, bleary-eyed, un-caffeinated, willing to sacrifice sleep to experience sunrise together. Then we piled in cars and drove to the trailhead where we donned headlamps and began our trek up the mountain.

If you’ve never night-hiked, I recommend trying it. Out in the woods, the visual world shrinks to the small circle of light projected by your headlamp. At first, this can be unsettling. What you imagine out there beyond your narrow scope can feel scary. What’s that I hear tramping in the woods? Am I about to walk off a cliff I can’t see? But as you relax into a rhythm of footfall and breath, and begin to trust that a bear isn’t lurking around every bend waiting to maul you, your other senses come alive. The infinite world beyond your small circle—the one perceived by feel, sound, smell and, most importantly, spirit—begins to reveal itself.

Anyone who knows me knows I love poetry, and Rilke is one of my favorites. I’ve got probably a dozen of his poems memorized. That morning as we scrambled up a steep section in the dark, this Rilke passage randomly crossed my mind:

I live my life in widening circles 
that reach out across the world. 
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it. 

I felt the circle widening on the trail that morning. There was the widening circle of my sensory perception: the wind on my face, birds singing their morning song, the smell of an irritated skunk. But also the widening circle of my spiritual perception in that place—a kind of holy, electrified presence I felt in this forest that had so recently tossed off winter’s brown blanket and was now dressing itself in spring green. If you ever doubt resurrection is real, come to the woods.

Of course, being Easter, resurrection has been much on mind. Now more than ever. The older I get the more I feel how vital and urgent it is that we come to Easter not looking to it as an explanation for something that happened to one man in one time and one place—as if unfathomable mystery could ever be explained—but rather an experience available to all of us, all the time.

I think of Meister Eckhart and his great quote:

We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself?

Eckhart wrote that at Christmas, but if he’d been thinking on this matter in another season—and if he’d had Rilke for a writing partner—he might’ve just as well have written, What good is it if the eternal rising of the divine Son is not also taking place within me as the drawing of my life in ever-widening circles?

We reached Lookout Rock about fifteen minutes before dawn. There we sat in silence a while, looking out at the ancient layers of Blue Ridge just becoming visible. Then, as the spirit moved, someone shared something, then another, then another. A poem, a scripture, a thought. None of us in the group is Quaker, but it’s a very Quaker thing to do, speaking only as the spirit moves. It’s also a very Discovering Renewal thing to do, and a big part of the reason I return to that retreat year after year.

As we perched on the rocks, a bank of clouds rose to our east. Sunrise came not with ray bursting over ridge but with gentle brightening. After my friend Daniel Rogers read a passage from that classic 14th century mystical work The Cloud of Unknowing, I shared some words from the great naturalist and father of the American national parks John Muir. In this passage Muir speaks of his over-civilized boyhood and how he eventually found home, freedom and calm in the outdoors, and in the gladness that …I was not great enough to be missed by the busy world I’d left behind.

Imagine for a moment the busy world not missing you. How does that make you feel? Free? Fearful? Both?

The stretch of Muir that I read describes the landscape of his liberation—mountains thousands of years old still in the bloom of youth; clouds glowing with amber light; valleys stretched out in cascades of color. To Muir these were not dead features in scenes he passed through but characters in the life he so vibrantly lived—landscapes beaming with consciousness and beauty beyond thought.

Beaming consciousness. Beauty beyond thought.

I love that. Beaming consciousness and beauty beyond thought is what I felt was out there beyond the limits of my headlamp that morning in the woods, the trees and shrubs and animals all around me responding with ancient intelligence to the call of spring. That’s what I felt in the company of beloved friends up there on the rocks. How very Easter it all was. What is resurrection if not beaming consciousness, the light of love warming the world after winter, the company of fellow travelers on the path? What is God, spirit and friendship if not beauty beyond thought? No explanations will suffice for these things; they can only be experienced.

Before I could finish reading the Muir piece up there on the rocks, lightning hit a few miles away, followed by thunder roll that shook the granite under our feet. Keen to avoid being struck, we quickly grabbed our poles and headed back down the trail. But this is how the reading ends, with a note both sobering and encouraging:

A lifetime is so little a time that we die before we get ready to live. Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few them are dirt.

Wishing you all a deep and meaningful Eastertide,

Greg Durham

Pair the above reflection with…

Widening Circles (in its entirety) by Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in widening circles 
that reach out across the world. 
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the
primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of year
and I still don't know: am I a
falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are May 13, June 24, July 22 and Aug 19. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Sun, May 11, 10-11am: Journey With John, a contemplative, conversational walk with the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through 2025. Join any time.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

Share

Contemplation In The City, April 2025

Hello, friends and fellow contemplatives!

I am so excited to get to see some of you in a couple weeks at Discovering Renewal. For those attending, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at greg@litcaustin.org. Also, below, find a list of other upcoming events you might enjoy. I’m especially excited about Through The Eyes Of Mary Magdalene, Life In The City’s original musical retelling of the Easter story. If you’re in or near Austin, try and come on down for this:

Sun. Apr. 6, 10-11:30am: In-person Sunday service (Metanoia Journey)
Tues. Apr. 8, 6-8pm: Contemplative service (Life In The City); coffee at 6, service at 7
Sun. Apr. 13, 10-11am: Journey With John (Life In The City)
Sun. Apr 20, 11:15am-12:30pm: Through The Eyes Of Mary Magdalene, Life In The City's original musical presentation of the Easter story.
Mon. Apr 21-Fri. Apr 25: Discovering Renewal 2025 in Montreat, NC

Details on all these and more further along in the newsletter. Also, if you find these monthly posts meaningful or helpful, spread the word to others who might also feel the same by hitting the Share button below.

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Last week I started working on my sermon for this coming Sunday, and immediately found myself struggling. The scripture I was given to preach on is the Gospel of John story about Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’s feet. You probably know this one. The set-up is, a couple weeks earlier, Jesus raised Mary’s brother Lazarus from the dead. Now, Mary, Lazarus and their sister Martha are throwing a dinner party in Jesus’s honor. At the party, in a showy display of gratitude, Mary pours out a bunch of expensive perfume on Jesus’s feet. It’s one of the wildest scenes in scripture—surprising, extravagant, almost erotic.

Not everyone’s happy about it, though. Judas Iscariot, for one, complains about the waste of such a precious commodity. Jesus is quick to shut down this criticism: “Leave Mary alone. She bought it for the day of my burial.”

Okay, fine. But the problem I can see Judas having is that it’s not the day of Jesus’s burial. Jesus is still very much alive. And now Mary has blown all the nard. And if she didn’t want to save it for the original purpose, the least she could’ve done is sell it and donate the proceeds to the poor. As Judas points out, it was worth a year’s wages. A lot of folks could’ve been fed with that.

As I meditated on this story, I wasn’t sure what to do with it, sermon-wise. Most commentary I’ve read (John’s gospel included), and most sermons I’ve heard, use the story solely as an opportunity to portray Judas as a stock villain. In my opinion, that’s too easy, and it’s too shallow a take on wisdom literature. Also, honestly, I get Judas. In many ways, I’m a stereotypical oldest child: sober, serious, budget-minded. So Mary’s act does seem like a waste!

I knew, however, that not only could I not make a sermon out of that, I was also missing something essential. So, I did what I often do when my sermon-writing gets stuck: I popped in my earbuds, turned on some music—in this case, While I’m Livin’, Tanya Tucker’s Grammy-winning album from 2019—and went for a walk.

As Tanya played, I ran through the story again in my mind, trying to see it through the eyes of the different characters who would’ve been there that day: Lazarus, Martha, their friends. Where I got stuck in this exercise is where I always get stuck: trying to see from Jesus’s point of view. I just kept falling back into Judas-like stinginess.

Part of what I think bothers me is how freely Mary celebrates. It is less than a week before Jesus’s crucifixion, and they are in a village only two miles from Jerusalem. This is, literally, the valley of the shadow of death. And yet Mary’s living her best life, and pouring that life out on others.

If I’m honest, I’m jealous of Mary. Her brand of wild abandon does not come naturally to me, even in the best of times, and even less so in recent times when I’ve felt especially self-conscious about even expressing too much joy lest those around me think I don’t take seriously the daily assault on decency, dignity and peace that we are currently witnessing in our country and around the globe. Part of me just wants the world to postpone all celebrating until a time when…what? We all get along? We’ve solved all the world’s problems? This time will never come.

This is all to say that I wasn’t making much headway with the sermon, or understanding Mary, or seeing her act with the same generosity of spirit as Jesus. That is, until I was about five minutes from home and the last track of Tanya Tucker’s album came on. It’s called Bring My Flowers Now, and it starts like this.

Bring my flowers now while I’m living
I won’t need your love when I’m gone
Don’t spend time, tears and money on my old breathless body
If your heart is in them flowers, bring ‘em home. 

That opening stanza stopped me in my tracks. Despite the fact I’ve heard this song many times, something about hearing it with Mary fresh on my mind, well…it just hit different. I began to listen very closely as Tanya told her story.

All the miles cast a long shadow
I'd take a couple back if I could
I'd've learned to play guitar
Told my daddy more I loved him
But I believe, for the most part, I done good

Tanya goes on to express the kinds of regrets we all wrack up in life. She wishes she’d been a better friend, and a better daughter to her mother. But these regrets live hand-in-hand with the joy Tanya feels for the ordinary miracles of life:

There's always sunrise and rainbows and babies
And the little things I cherish on my way

Tanya reminds us that life is never an either/or proposition; it’s both/and. Then, near the end of the song, she sums up her hard-won wisdom with words Mary of Bethany surely would have understood:

So if you got love, then you're sittin' on a gold mine
And you can't take it with you when you go
So don't wait to help your sister
Forgive your brother and your neighbor
We all think we got the time until we don't

My great-grandfather, a country singer and musician, told me when I was a boy that country music was God’s way of speaking to people who wouldn’t open a Bible. And if Bring My Flowers Now isn’t gospel, I don’t know what is. I can almost see Jesus at that dinner party, picking up a guitar and singing this song to his friends.

When I got home from my walk, I put the song on repeat. Soon, I was able to see the party in Bethany like I never had before—the joy of a brother lost, now found; death turned to life; grief to gratitude; mourning to celebration. For the first time, instead of seeing Mary through Judas’s eyes, as someone throwing away a blessing, I felt I glimpsed her through Jesus’s eyes, and saw her extravagant act for the wild and free kindness it was. In Bethany, so close to Jerusalem where death and darkness will soon descend, Mary brings her “flowers” of life and light.

What I hear Mary and Tanya saying, and singing, is Don’t wait. Bring your flowers now. Pour the fragrance of your kindness out into the world. Don’t wait to bless meals, share food and find holiness in the everyday. Don’t wait to tell someone you love them. Don’t wait to sing, don’t wait to pray, and don’t wait to praise the ordinary miracles that surround you and support you every single moment of every single day of your life.

Until next time, may grace and peace be yours,

Gregory Cash Durham
Austin, TX
April 2025

Pair the above reflection with…

Everything Is Waiting For You by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Apr. 8, May 13, June 24, July 22 and Aug 19. *Please note the new date for May.* We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month.

Discovering Renewal: *Please note that the Contemplative track is full. If you want to go but hadn’t yet signed up, email me at greg@litcaustin.org as soon as possible. There may be unused spots on other tracks that I can ask Montreat to transfer to the Contemplative track.* In April 2025, I will be leading a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. Details here.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Sun, Apr. 13, 10-11am: Journey With John, a contemplative, conversational walk with the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through 2025. Join any time.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, March 2025

Hello, friends and fellow contemplatives!

Here we are, on the cusp of Lent, that season of simplicity, prayer and fasting (in its many guises). Is there a new discipline you’d like to commit to or take up this season? Is there anything you plan to give up? I know there has lately been some resistance to the tradition of giving things up, but I personally find it edifying to look at my life and identify those places where I can simplify or cut back on that which is not life-giving or leading to growth.

Whatever your Lent practice, we’ve got a number of opportunities to help support it in the 40-odd days ahead, including:

Sun. Mar. 2, 10-11:30am: In-person Sunday service (Metanoia Journey)
Tues. Mar. 4, 6-8pm: Contemplative service (Life In The City); coffee at 6, service at 7
Sat. Mar. 29, 10am-3pm: Intro to Centering Prayer workshop (Metanoia Journey)
Sun. Mar. 30, 10-11am: Journey with John (Life In The City)
Mon. Apr 21-Fri. Apr 25: Discovering Renewal 2025 in Montreat, NC

Details on all this and more further along in the newsletter.

I’ve been packing lunch for my son Henry since he was in preschool. Over fourteen years, that’s more than 2500 sandwiches, apples and chocolate-chip cookies. I love doing this. It feels like a sacrament, like preparing the communion table. It’s also come to feel like part of my identity. Sometimes I wonder who I’ll be when I no longer have a boy to pack lunch for.

In addition to food, I always sneak some spiritual sustenance into Henry’s lunchbox in the form of quotes. I love quotes. I’ve got tons of them filling notebooks and scrawled on scraps of paper scattered around the house—in sock drawers, under pillows, on end tables. Every night at supper we pick one out of a jar and it becomes our guide for the next day (last night’s: If we surrendered to the earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted like trees. Rainer Maria Rilke). But lunch also gets a quote, and there’s one that’s gotten more play than all others—the final lines of Mary Oliver’s classic poem The Summer Day:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I’ve never asked Henry to answer this question. I’ve wanted only to give him the question—something to chew on while he’s chewing his cheese sandwich. And I have given him this question, again and again and again, to the point that he finally told me at the start of this present school year that it was annoying and I needed new material. So, I reluctantly retired Mary Oliver.

In addition to giving quotes for lunch, I often gift Henry homemade coupons for Christmas. This past Christmas, I printed out a coupon with the word Silence on it. I then sealed it in an envelope and placed it under the tree alongside a new pair of Nike high-tops, an Apple pen and a gift card to Waterloo Records. When Henry opened the envelope he eyed me with suspicion and said, “Do I actually want this gift?” I said, “Yes. Even if you don’t know it yet.” He rolled his eyes.

And so, last month, in fulfillment of this gift, we found ourselves at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, one of the last easy(ish)-to-reach, off-the-grid places in North America. There, the nearest cellphone signal is an hour’s drive away. There is no internet, TV, news or social media, nothing to distract or entertain. Nowhere to go, nothing to do but be present. What there is in abundance is silence, solitude, and self-reflection, things few adults are comfortable with in the 21st century, to say nothing of 16-year old boys.

To be honest, in the weeks leading up to the trip, I was braced for Henry to initiate tense negotiations about what was allowable. Could he download movies to his iPad? Listen to Kendrick Lamar in his ear buds? Play Roblox on his phone? My answers would have been no, no and no. But much to my surprise, he never asked.

He did, however, ask what a typical day at New Camaldoli looked like. I offered a cryptic answer: “Like a summer day in the 20th century.”

My guess is most of you reading this will know what I mean. Do you remember as a kid waking up on summer mornings and feeling the hours spread out like a vast ocean? I do. Even with all my chores—weeding and hoeing our gardens; driving the mowing tractor; doing laundry—there was still time to climb trees, hike the mountains around our house, read, listen to the radio, stare up at the sky, toss a ball with my brother. There’s no hoeing or mowing at New Camaldoli, but there’s that same spaciousness of time I recall from those long-ago summer days.

I wasn’t sure how Henry would do with that. Like a lot of kids these days he’s highly-scheduled with homework, sports and choir obligations. He’s got precious little downtime. But I needn’t have worried. He took to silence and solitude like a fish to water. I thought he’d be constantly looking to me to entertain him. Instead, he ventured out on solo hikes, took lots of pictures, read one book and half of another, enjoyed naps, lazed in the grass.

I think I was right when I said at Christmas that the silence was something he wanted even if he didn’t yet know it. I think we all crave it these days—again, whether we know it or not. We did not evolve to be constantly connected, distracted and interrupted as we are now. Feeling constantly on is terrible for adults. Study after study has shown it’s disastrous for kids. So, I am thankful that places like New Camaldoli still exist—beyond the reach of social media, cable news and cellphones buzzing with the latest outrage. I think if everyone could spend a few days at a place like this, just once a year, the world would be much different, much gentler and kinder.

I know that’s not possible. But nothing stops us from making hermitages of our hearts—setting aside quiet minutes, drinking coffee with reverence, walking the dog like we’re strolling with Jesus, preparing supper with the care we’d bring to cooking the Last Supper. That way of life is always here, always available. We have only to choose it.

At New Camaldoli one afternoon, finding Henry’s room empty, I went looking for him. I found him a half-mile down the road, seated on the bench in the picture at the top of this reflection. When I got close, I could see he was looking at a scrap of paper in his hand. I leaned over his shoulder and, much to my surprise, saw it was one of the many scraps of paper I’ve given him over the years on which I scrawled Mary Oliver’s timeless question, that one he told me had become so annoying: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I sat down next to him. For a while we rested in silence. Then, for the first time ever, I said, “So, what do you think? What do you plan to do?”

Henry thought about it a moment. Then he held his hand out toward the mountains and sea and sky which in that place seem to go on forever and said meaningfully, mysteriously, “This.”

Greg Durham
Austin, Texas
February, 2025

Pair this reflection with The Summer Day by Mary Oliver:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Mar. 4, Apr. 8 and May 13. *Please note the new date for May.* We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of contemplative offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session which happens on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. I highly recommend their upcoming Intro to Centering Prayer workshop.

Discovering Renewal: *Please note that the Contemplative track is full. If you want to go but hadn’t yet signed up, email me at greg@litcaustin.org as soon as possible. There may be unused spots on other tracks that I can ask Montreat to transfer to the Contemplative track.* In April 2025, I will be leading a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. Details here.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Sun, Mar 30, 10-11am: Journey With John, a contemplative, conversational walk with the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through 2025. Join at any time.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

Subscribe now

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Contemplation In The City, Feb. 2025

Hello, friends and fellow contemplatives! How has this Epiphany season been for you so far? Where are you seeing God made manifest amidst the joy and sorrow, grief and gratitude of life? Have you felt in the daily details and mundane moments sudden flashes of love and light?

If there is one overarching “goal” of the contemplative life—one destination toward which all our journeying moves—it is to become attuned to Epiphany: to awaken to the Love-Light in and among us, and then to live in response to that. We’ve got a number of opportunities to provide sustenance on that journey in the weeks and months ahead, including:

Sun. Feb. 2, 10-11:30am: In-person Sunday service (Metanoia Journey)
Tues. Feb. 4, 6-8pm: Contemplative Service (Life In The City)
Sun. Feb. 23, 10-11am: Journey with John (Life In The City)
Tues. Feb. 25, 7-8:30pm: Intro to The Work (Metanoia Journey on Zoom)
Mon. Apr 21-Fri. Apr 25: Discovering Renewal 2025 in Montreat, NC

Details on all of this, and more, further along in the newsletter.

When I was in my twenties and early thirties, and feeling my way into the world, I did a lot of things that mortified my parents. I helped “milk” a king cobra of its venom in Bangkok. I rode my mountain bike from Fairbanks to Anchorage—400 miles—along a road with no cars but lots of grizzlies. I flew on a tiny, radar-free plane between towering Himalayan peaks, destined for a landing strip that nowadays often shows up on lists of “world’s most danger airports”. I hitchhiked in Honduras.

For my parents who, like nearly all parents, feel a biological mandate to protect their children, these forays of mine were terror-inducing. But I had to go. Why? my mother once pleaded to know as I packed a bag for Borneo. Why not just read about these places? She then offered her stack of National Geographics for me to borrow whenever I wanted. My answer was the same as every time we had this discussion: I need to see for myself.

I thought of that scene this past week as I prepared to co-host the first in a series of contemplative conversations about the gospel of John. In the first session, we covered chapter 1 of the gospel which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest bits of sacred scripture ever written. You really could spend a lifetime unpacking just that chapter…heck, even just the first verse. (John 1:1-2)

The Word came first,
The Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.   

Chew on that a while!

Anyway, near the end of the chapter Jesus is walking along the Jordan when a couple of John the Baptist’s disciples ask him where he’s staying. Instead of directly answering, he offers for them to, “Come and see for yourself.” (John 1:35-39) A little while later, Philip is telling his buddy Nathaniel about this Jesus dude he’s met when Nathaniel incredulously, snarkily, asks, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” To which Philip echoes: “Come and see for yourself.” (John 1:45-46)

To come and see for yourself is the call, the invitation, to the contemplative life, and faith life in general. Not to come and believe. Not to come hear a lecture. Rather, to come and see for yourself.

Jesus might have saved us some time and trouble if he’d done less show and more tell. If he’d just given a seminar and been done with it. Or written an instruction manual for good living. Then we could just assemble our lives like we assemble shelves from Ikea. But if we accept that the Way of Jesus—indeed, of all sacred paths—is about transformation and transcendence, about opening a gateway to wonder and awe, there really is no other way. Have you ever been talked into wonder and awe? I haven’t. As the Psalmist says (Psalm 34:8), we must taste God to know that God is good. No one can taste for us. We must try out God for ourselves.

One way to see/taste/feel for ourselves is to live with good questions. In the 1990s, while living in Paris, I bought a copy of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet in which he wrote:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

At the time I was definitely someone who could be impatient with all that was unsolved in his heart, so this was good counsel for me. It really helped change things. Over time, finding answers—especially to those most meaningful things in life which nearly always elude answer—became less important than carrying around good questions in my backpack.

One of my favorites comes from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who asked:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

This question, which has been asked by many, in various ways, is a riff on one originally posed by 17th century German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. For both Heschel and Leibniz the simple answer was God. But the deeper answer was not to answer. Rather, Heschel implies, we should live the question, the mystery, the inexplicable gift of God that is every breath. And never lose your sense of wonder that there is something rather than nothing.

As we progress through Epiphany, which goes until March 4th this year, may we attune ourselves to the wonder and awe that is always there, always available, moment by moment, waiting to be noticed. May we treasure that wonder and awe in our hearts, then pass them on in whatever ways we can.

Wishing you peace and all good things,

Greg Durham
Austin, Texas 

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Feb. 4, Mar. 4, Apr. 8 and May 6. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of contemplative offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session which happens on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. New for early 2025 is an Introduction to the Work weekly Zoom conversation that runs from Feb. 25-Apr 1. Participation is free, but requires registration. I’ll be joining, and would love to see you there.

Discovering Renewal: *Please note that, as of today, only 2 spaces remain on my Contemplative track.* In April 2025, I will be leading a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. Details here. Questions? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org. Also, if you do try and sign up but the track is full, let me know as I may be able to get them to open more spots.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Thurs, Feb 20, 6pm: Dinner Church. Join us for a shared meal and meaningful conversation. Register here.

Sun, Feb 23, 10-11am: Journey With John, a contemplative conversational exploration of the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through 2025, starting on Jan. 26. Join at any time.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, Jan. 25

Happy New Year, friends and fellow contemplatives! Also—and more importantly—welcome to Epiphany. This is one of my favorite seasons of the year. I’ll say more about that below, but in the meantime mark your calendars for Tuesday, Jan. 14. This is our first in-person gathering of 2025. As usual, doors open at 6pm if anyone wants to come early for decaf and casual conversation. The meditation service is from 7-8pm.

Other important dates to note:

Thurs. Jan 16, 6-8pm: Dinner Church (LITC)
Sun. Jan 19, 11:15am: Requiem For Martin Luther King (LITC)
Sun. Jan 26, 10-11am: Journey With John (LITC)
Sun. Jan 26, 7-8:30pm: Inner Work Group (Metanoia Journey on Zoom)
Mon. Apr 21-Fri. Apr 25: Discovering Renewal 2025 in Montreat, NC

Details on all of this, and more, further along in the newsletter.

In recent times I’ve been blessed with leading the last service of the year at Life In The City. I love this day. The Christmas rush is in the rearview mirror, everyone seems a little more relaxed, and we are beginning to turn our attention to the new year. At LITC on this day, we circle up the chairs, eat cookies, drink coffee, sing songs, and practice two rituals: letting go and letting in.

In letting go, we write down what we wish to leave behind in the year ending. Then we burn the paper in a cleansing fire (AKA a Weber mini-grill). For letting in, we dare to imagine who we might become in the year ahead, then record the resolutions, goals and practices that will support us in that becoming.

Our letting go ritual this year was led by lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem Four Quartets:

For last year's words belong to last year's language,
And next year's words await another voice.
...What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.

For the letting in ritual, Howard Thurman was our guide:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

I love this wisdom. Eliot reminds us that end and beginning are two words for the same path to transformation. Meanwhile, Thurman sets up a challenging yardstick for measuring our progress on that path: Does what we’re doing make us come alive? Does it create meaning and purpose? Is it for the good of ourselves, others and the world?

One of my favorite mystics, Evelyn Underhill, takes things a step further while also leading us across the threshold from Christmas into Epiphany:

The birth of Christ in our souls is for a purpose beyond ourselves…Every Christian is part of the dust-laden air which shall radiate the glowing Epiphany of God, [and] catch and reflect his golden Light. You are the light of the world—but only because you are enkindled, made radiant by the One Light of the World. And being kindled, we have got to get on with being useful.

Radiate. Reflect. Glowing. Kindled.

I love those words. What light and warmth they give off. But I think the key phrase, which Underhill delivers in her stereotypically unfussy prose, is …being kindled, we have got to get on with being useful.

Epiphany comes from the Greek word epipháneia which means manifestation or appearance. If Advent is about waiting for the light of God, and Christmas is for celebrating the arrival of that light in the birth of Christ, then it seems to me that Epiphany is about recognizing and responding to how the light appears and manifests everywhere. While it kicks off with the commemoration of the Magi’s visit to Bethlehem and the revelation of God manifested as a little baby, the season overflows with other epiphanies where God is made manifest: Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan, his teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth, the wedding at Cana.

While those are Bible-based epiphany stories, they point us to the truth that God is manifesting all around us, every day, in every place. This very moment, God is at the gym, on the highway and in the hospital. God is manifesting in the attention a tutor gives a child struggling with math. God is present in the deep listening between two friends in a cafe. God is there as the concern that compels a driver to pull over to the side of the road and help someone change a flat tire.

We are, ourselves, epiphanies. As Underhill says, we radiate the glowing Epiphany, we are the light of the world because we are enkindled, made radiant by the One Light.

Can we accept that? If so, what do we do with it?

First, I think, is to recognize the Epiphany ongoing in ourselves and in our midst. See that God is made manifest in every breath, every kind word, every bit of care we give and receive. These are not just niceties. They are, in fact, God. Then, embrace contemplative practices—centering prayer, lectio, mindful walking, the list goes on and on—which help us regain spiritual sight when we lose it. Removing the barriers to seeing is the work of Epiphany (and a lifetime). But once we see, we can get to, as Underhill says, being useful. Or, as Thurman would put it, we will come alive.

In the first Epiphany, two thousand years ago, the magi followed a star to Love. If now, in the ongoing Epiphany of our lives, there is a call, perhaps it is this: to make our own love a star that burns brightly for others to follow.

Wishing you peace and every good thing this Epiphany season,

Greg

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Jan. 14, Feb. 4, Mar. 4, Apr. 8 and May 6. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and casual conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of contemplative offerings, including a regular Sunday morning centering prayer and lectio divina session which happens on Zoom, and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. They also have an Inner Work group that meets on Zoom and is resuming for the new year on Jan 26. No prior experience is necessary to participate.

Discovering Renewal: In April 2025, I will be leading a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Details here. **Update: Please note there are only 5 spots left.** So, if you’re interested, sign up sooner rather than later. Cancellation with a full refund (minus $25 processing fee) up to March 11th of 2025. Questions about Discovering Renewal? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org. Also, if you do try and sign up but the track is full, let me know as I may be able to get them to open more spots.

More upcoming events at Life In The City

Thurs, Jan 16, 6pm: Dinner Church. Join us for a shared meal and meaningful conversation.

Sun, Jan 19, 11:15am: Requiem For MLK, a song-filled tribute to an American icon.

Sun, Jan 26, 10-11am: Journey With John, a conversational exploration of the fourth gospel’s wisdom and way of abundant life. Monthly through 2025, starting on Jan. 26. Join at any time.

If these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, Dec. 2024

Before getting to this month’s reflection, I wanted to alert you that we’ve got some really meaningful gatherings coming up, including a beautiful Blue Christmas service this coming Saturday, Dec. 21, and an April retreat in North Carolina. More on those, and other opportunities to connect, further down this newsletter.

The photo above is John Alex Durham, my great-great-great-great-grandfather. Like me, he carried around little notebooks in which he jotted things down—day books he called them. One of these diaries, from the Civil War, is now held at the Special Collections Library of the University of Tennessee. It begins in August 1861 when he enlisted in that brutal conflict, and it goes until the early days of 1863.

In his day book, John meticulously tracked his army company’s movements through Kentucky and Tennessee while also recording numbers…lots and lots of number: miles marched, men killed, enemy supplies captured.

He never complains. Rarely does he reveal personal feelings. I don’t think this was rare for his time, especially with men. But I can also imagine how John must have had to build a dam across his feelings, one he dare not breach for fear of what might come flooding out.

In the waning hours of 1863, he and eighty-thousand others converged on Stones River, south of Nashville. John records a driving rain that turns to snow. Then, in a shaky hand, he makes a short, heartbreaking note: Cold, weary, hungry.

On the night of December 30, tension was at a fever pitch. The soldiers knew a major battle was imminent. After dark, soldiers from both sides—separated by only 700 yards—began a kind of battle of the bands. Confederates loudly played Dixie, Southern Rights and The Bonny Blue Flag. Union soldiers replied with the Star-Spangled Banner, America and Columbia.

Then someone on the Confederate side started playing the most beloved tune of the time: Home Sweet Home.

Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home
There's no place like home

To thee, I'll return
Overburdened with care
The heart's dearest solace
Will smile on me there

This song stirred such tender emotions, commanders on both sides usually banned it from being played for fear it would make their men lay down their arms and refuse to fight. But this night, the soldiers would not be stopped. A musical rebellion broke out, with Union soldiers now joining the Confederates. Soon, a chorus of thousands was singing and weeping in unison.

No more from that cottage
Again I will roam
Be it ever so humble
There's no place like home

Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home
There's no place like home

It was a moment of truce, fellowship and flickering hope on what, for many, was their last night. Of all Civil War battles, Stones River had the highest percentage of casualties: a third of soldiers lost. John Durham was one of these.

Perhaps you’ve heard of another instance of soldiers disobeying their superiors in order to lay down their weapons and join the enemy in song. This was on December 24, 1914, during World War I. Pope Benedict had proposed a temporary ceasefire which generals on both sides rejected. But the troops had other ideas.

On the devastated fields of Flanders, German and English trenches were separated by only a few hundred muddy yards. On both sides, soldiers’ thoughts turned toward home, and memories of Christmases past. The yearning was something most of us today can scarcely imagine.

Then, from a German trench, a voice lifted, singing,

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht
Alles schläft; einsam wacht

The sound drifted across the frozen wasteland. On the English side, the soldiers heard it and joined in.

Round yon Virgin, mother and child
Holy infant, so tender and mild

Then one brave soul made the move—he climbed out of the trenches and stepped into no-mans-land. Soon, others from both sides joined, singing, sharing handshakes and hugs. They passed around flasks. Gifts of chocolates and candies—more precious than gold—were exchanged. Someone brought up a ball from the trenches and a game of soccer broke out. In the morning, they would return to killing one another. But for now, like a candle in the dark, was a glimmer of Christmas hope: radiant beams, redeeming grace, love’s pure light.

If we are honest, Christmas hope is always hope among the ruins. It is always worth remembering that Jesus wasn’t born to royalty in a palace but to a poor couple in a stable in an occupied land. God came among us not as a superhero, but as a baby, on a silent night, a holy night.

What if, this year, amidst our celebrating, we laid down our weapons, even if only for a day? What if we sang our carols across enemy lines? What if, amidst the tinsel and holly, we offered the gift of grace to our enemies, even if only in our prayers? Who knows what peace such a truce might bring.

Wishing you all the blessings of the season,
Greg Durham
Austin, TX

Blue Christmas/Longest Night Service

On Dec. 21 we will gather to welcome the longest night of the year. This candlelit, come-as-you-are gathering marks the moment we turn from the luminous dark of Advent to the hopeful light of Christmas. Through specially-selected readings, prayers, and quiet (unamplified) music, we will honor the sacredness of the season, in all its many complexities. Doors open at 5pm for coffee, cookies and casual conversation. Service is from 6-7pm. Questions? Email Greg, greg@litcaustin.org.

Advent 2024

It is not too late to sign up for our seasonal series, The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets. For this year’s theme, Spiritual Friendship, we have paired wisdom masters whose lives were changed by knowing one another. Pairings include Francis and Clare of Assisi, Pauli Murray and Eleanor Roosevelt, Howard Thurman and Rufus Jones, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, Bill Wilson and Carl Jung, and more. Sign up here.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Dec. 21, Jan. 14, Feb. 4, Mar. 4, Apr. 8 and May 6. Note that our Dec 21 service will be oriented around Blue Christmas and the solstice, and will include music, poetry and other elements to welcome the longest night of the year. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and conversation. The service begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately 1 hour. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of contemplative offerings, including a regular Sunday morning Zoom and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. They are also hosting a one-day Centering Prayer retreat outside Austin on Dec. 21, which promises to be rich and meaningful.

Discovering Renewal: In April 2025, I will be leading a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Details here. Please note the Contemplative track is capped at 20 participants, and is more than half-full. If you’re interested, consider signing up sooner rather than later. Cancellation with a full refund (minus $25 processing fee) up to March 11th of 2025. Questions about Discovering Renewal? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org.

Finally, if these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Contemplation In The City, Nov. 7, 2024

I woke up at 3am yesterday, glanced at the news in disbelief, then went straight to my journal. I wanted—I needed—to get some of the anguish I felt inside out onto the page. But when I put pen to paper, nothing came. I had no words.

This rarely happens. I spent years as a speechwriter, the first half in politics where there is never not something to say. For me, words have always come easy .

So, what was happening? Why could I not get a single sentence onto the page?

Then I remembered another time this happened. It was after my beloved Granny died and I needed to prepare something for the funeral. I sat down then with pen and paper, and out came…nothing.

When that memory flooded back to me yesterday, I thought, “Ah, now I knows what’s happening here: grief.”

My guess is most of you reading this also feel at a loss after Tuesday. How does that look for you? For me, it’s different in different moments: anger, confusion, fear. But I do think those are just constituent parts of a whole that is called grief.

I don’t like grieving. It feels lousy. But I’m also grateful for it. It tells me that I care, that I love, and that loss hurts. Like a lot of guys, I spent the first half of life holding hurt at arms-length. I try to do less of that these days. That has meant feeling a lot more heartache. But I’ll take that any day over feeling nothing.

Another strange thing about grief: though it arrives on the wings of death—physical, emotional, spiritual—its great gift is to remind us we are alive. And not only alive, but alive with one another. We are not alone.

Also, this: despite how broken many of us feel right now, and how much is broken in the world, creation is still beautiful and brimming with chances to love and be loved, if we are willing.

Proof of this came to me yesterday morning. Outside it was still dark and, inside, I was feeling very dark. After a while sitting on my deck, I decided to meditate. There was then just a hint of light on the horizon. Thirty minutes later, I opened my eyes to an ecstatic sunrise (the picture I snapped is at the top of this newsletter). I’ve lived on this land for two decades and seen a lot of sunrises, but none quite like this. In that moment, though I was alone, I suddenly felt like I was in the presence of a Spirit that was inviting me to participate in something much bigger than myself and much more eternal than the results of an election (and aren’t we always in the presence of that Spirit, whether we recognize it or not?). That didn’t banish my grief, and I don’t believe it was asking that of me. Rather, it was a reminder that I’m not alone in grief. And in a barrage of bad news, this was one shining spot of good news.

Now, I’d like to offer you a kind of field guide for post-election grief. Below, you will find a short, curated gathering of resources, from music to essays to poetry. All the science tells us how important accompaniment is in grief. So, consider these friends to accompany you on this journey.

And below all that, find information on upcoming gatherings and retreats. Contemplation In The City’s next in-person gathering is on Nov. 19. If you’re in Austin, consider joining us. Our good friends at Metanoia Journey also have some great things coming up, including an Advent retreat. Speaking of Advent, I’m especially excited about the 2024 edition of The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets. More on that later.

What helps you walk with grief? If there are resources or ideas or wisdom you’d like to share, feel free to leave them in the Comments below.

Wishing you peace and all good things,
Greg

Poetry

When News Is Bad by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Take seriously your grief.
It is love, stripped bare.
Let it flow through you.
Trust that you are held.

We all are held by the Beloved,
the Broken-Hearted One,
the One who Suffers most Deeply.
Know you are not alone.

Millions bear your sorrow.
Ancestors and even unborn generations
walk with you gratefully.
Seek others who are tenderhearted.

Receive all the grace you can.
In the flesh is best, but even in spirit,
know we are here.

Trust the Goodness.
God has not given up on us.
Through every disaster grace remains.
Refuse to despair.

Choose courage over selfishness,
trust over fear, love over anger.
You do not know the end of grace.

There is much you cannot change,
but bring healing where you can.
We are not promised to be given light,
but to shine with light.

Don't become an enemy of the world
and its brokenness. Stay tender.
Become a source of comfort and joy for others.
Let this purpose bear you through the darkness
and you yourself will become light.

Take courage; trust grace;
stay connected; practice love.

I also love:

Finisterre by David Whyte. Whyte’s inspiration was his niece’s journey to the end of the Camino de Santiago where land gives way to sea and sky. In times of trouble, this poem has been a great friend to me, its power summed up by the line: No way to make sense of a world that wouldn’t let you pass, except to call an end to the way you had come.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. Another of my favorites that I return to again and again. To me, she captures the spirit of accompanying one another through grief in this gorgeous line: Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Onto A Vast Plain by Rainer Maria Rilke. This poem is especially speaking to me the past couple days, as it calls us into accepting the things we can’t change and finding the courage to change the things—and be the change—we can.

Music for many moods

Grief has many moods. Below is an eclectic music mix that speaks to that range. Some of these songs are broken-hearted, some are defiant, and some encourage us to look up through the forest of loss and see if we might catch glimpses of the sky. Wherever you are, I hope something here speaks to you.

Also:

Trouble Me by 10,000 Maniacs
Let It Be by The Beatles
Rise Up by Andra Day
This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie

Wisdom From The Masters

Do Not Be Afraid by Cynthia Bourgeault: Cynthia is one of my beloved teachers from my two years at The Living School. She is also a calm, wise presence. In this piece she puts out a call to “…honor your grief, give it space, but not to barricade yourself behind it, not to let it incapacitate you or harden your heart to your neighbors who have seen things otherwise.” This message is good for all time, but especially on the heels of an election.

Advice From A Psychotherapist On How To Cope Today by Dr. Gary Greenberg: This was published on Election Day, but the crux of it—that life is, has always been, and always will be, ruled by uncertainty, and how we can survive and thrive with that—is good for any time.

Love Takes Commitment by Reverend Michael Curry: This short email came out this morning, via the Daily Meditations from the Center For Action And Contemplation, so some of you have probably already seen it. If not, it is a short excerpt from Rev. Curry’s 2020 book, Love Is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. Curry says, “Love is a commitment to seek the good and to work for the good and welfare of others. It doesn’t stop at our front door or our neighborhood, our religion or race, or our state’s or your country’s border.” I would add that it doesn’t stop after an election whose outcome we don’t like. If anything, that should only light our fire for love so it burns even brighter.

Advent 2024

I’m excited to share that, starting Dec. 1, we will resume our seasonal email series, The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets. For this year’s theme, Spiritual Friendship, I will be pairing wisdom masters whose lives were changed by knowing one another. Pairings include Francis and Clare of Assisi, Pauli Murray and Eleanor Roosevelt, Howard Thurman and Rufus Jones, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, and more. Sign up here.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Nov. 19 and Dec 21. Note that our Dec 21 service will be oriented around Blue Christmas and the solstice, and will include music, poetry and other elements to welcome the longest night of the year. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and conversation, and the service begins at 7pm. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of contemplative offerings, including a regular Sunday morning Zoom and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. They are also hosting a one-day Centering Prayer retreat outside Austin on Dec. 21, which promises to be rich and meaningful.

Discovering Renewal: In April 2025, I will be leading a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Details here. Please note the Contemplative track is capped at 20 participants, and is more than half-full. If you’re interested, consider signing up sooner rather than later. Cancellation with a full refund (minus $25 processing fee) up to March 11th of 2025. Questions about Discovering Renewal? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org.

Finally, if these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org.

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Greetings, friends and fellow contemplatives!

I come to you from my Rocky Mountain home where I’ve retreated for a couple weeks of R&R, sermon-writing, holiday planning and—if I’m honest—election season recentering (more on that below). Following the reflection below, please note upcoming offerings including Contemplation In The City’s next in-person gathering on Oct. 22, as well and online and in-person opportunities from Metanoia Journey. I’m also especially excited to announce that our annual Advent series, The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets, comes out on Dec. 1. News on all this, and more, further down. I look forward to sharing this season with you.

With my son’s cross country season now over, and no more having to roust a teen out of bed for 6am practice, I’ve retreated to the mountains for a bit. Probably because I’m a mountain native, I’m always eager to get back to higher ground. And this time of year up here at 10,000 feet is, arguably, my favorite, with rapidly changing light, color and temperatures. As I type this now, snow is dusting the highest peaks and the last golden aspen leaves are drifting past my window.

This year, three friends joined me for the start of this trip. We came with hiking boots, poles and parkas, prepared for any weather. But, as evidenced by what we swore we wouldn’t talk about but then talked about anyway, we also brought with us our fears, hopes and anxieties around the upcoming election and the generally unstable state of the world. There’s no escaping reality, even here in one of the prettiest places on the planet.

The greater portion of my anxiety these days—as I wrote about last month—comes from my inability to crystal ball the future. I mean, if I just knew how this election would turn out, if I just knew when the wars in Eastern Europe and the Mideast would end, if I just knew what tomorrow would bring, I could celebrate or mourn. But in either case, I’d know. And knowing helps me sleep at night.

The modern world, it seems to me, is built around needing-to-know-the-answer-now. Or thinking we do. Our ability to find out more than ever, faster than ever, has given us the illusion that everything is, or even should be, known. With smart phones we’ve all become mini-researchers. Don’t know something? Ask Siri or a chatbot or Google. They’re there for you, 24/7.

Wanting to know is not bad. And we come by it honestly. We are hardwired to seek out knowledge and certainty. It brings a sense of control to a chaotic world. It makes us feel safe. When we can predict something we can gather the knowledge to try and control for positive outcomes. For example, if we know fast driving causes fatal accidents, we make speed limits. If we know polio kills, we make vaccines. All good stuff.

Where humans got tripped up along the evolutionary path is in applying that need to know to what is, ultimately, unknowable. To what lies forever beyond facts and figures. I’m talking about God, love and the realm of spirituality where we built religions that offered black-and-white answers for a world of grey. But as the mystics of all religions have been trying to tell us for millennia, the heart of the spiritual path is not in knowing and controlling, but in unknowing and surrendering. Jesus was never more clear about this than when he said that to gain our lives we must lose them. He wasn’t talking about literal death, but surrendering to illusions about ourselves, others and God, for it is only in entering a place of unknowing that we can begin to—that we have to—learn to trust.

As someone who never met a Google search or Wikipedia page he didn’t love, I need to be constantly reminded that my faith is not about knowing, but unknowing—that all our religious formulations are just the finger pointing at the moon, as the Buddhists say.

During this trip to Colorado, I’ve been getting that reminder from the book Awareness by Jesuit priest and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello (1931-1987). This wise and challenging work was recently gifted to me by my good friends David and Anna over at Metanoia Journey. It turned out to be the perfect thing to bring on a trip to the high mountains, as its no-nonsense, challenging spirituality pairs perfectly with a no-nonsense, challenging landscape.

Awareness, if you don’t already know, is a 184-page dose of spiritual tough love in which Father Anthony nudges, prods and pokes us to awaken from our sleepwalking lives. The middle of the book, where I am now, is devoted to reminding readers that deep spirituality is not about control and knowing but trusting and unknowing. Or, as Father Anthony puts it, unlearning all the rubbish they taught you. By they he means all those people and systems—parents, preachers, teachers, schools, churches (nearly all of them well-meaning)—who, in wanting to keep us safe, led us to believe that everything is, or should be, figure-outable and thus controllable, even God.

Knowing and controlling might be great for treating cancer or getting an A on an algebra test, but it’s disastrous for spirituality. As Father Anthony says, The fanaticism of one sincere believer who thinks he knows causes more evil than the united efforts of two hundred rogues…God, divinity, truth, love are unknowable by the thinking mind. Rather than pinning God down, he says, we should be constantly shedding our images and ideas of God and the notion that we can know a God who is love in the same way that we can know how to, say, make lentil soup. God is not a recipe you can follow and have everything turn out the way you want. Rather, God is wild, uncontrollable Love, ungraspable by the rational mind.

This resonates with me when I lay outside here in Colorado and look up at the stars and consider that what I see is only the first layer—the veil—to the infinity beyond. How could I think I know anything? It resonates with me when I consider the deathless love I have for my son—a love that cannot be quantified, calculated or diagrammed. It is not born of the thinking mind but of the mysterious, feeling heart.

In exploring unknowing, Father Anthony turns to the mystics:

God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction. Meister Eckhart

About God, we cannot say what He is but what He is not. Thomas Aquinas

This is the via negativa where knowing comes, paradoxically, through unknowing.

Here are a couple more quotes that touch on this which are not in the book, but which I love:

What has happened to our ability to dwell in the unknowing, to live inside a question and coexist with the tensions of uncertainty? Where is our willingness to incubate pain and let it birth something new? What has happened to patient unfolding, to endurance? These things are what form the ground of waiting. Sue Monk Kidd

This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky—that’s called liberation. Pema Chodron

That Pema Chodron quote really gets me because it makes no sense to the rational mind. Yet I—and I bet all of you—know it to be true. I experience it over and over. In moments when I release myself from the need to know or understand everything—to have it all figured out, to have it my way—I feel so unburdened. This feeling usually comes without warning and, often, with tears.

I had a moment like this just last week. It was 6:30am and I was at the gym doing squats. I had a random playlist going in my earbuds. At some point, the song Closer To Fine by the Indigo Girls came on. I loved this song when I was a teenager, though in retrospect I can’t imagine I had a clue why it spoke to me. Until it popped up in the film Barbie last year, I hadn’t heard it in years. In any case, I was mid-squat when the first chorus played.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my Source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine

Does anything ever just crack you open in an instant? When I heard that, tears sprang to my eyes and my knees began to shake. It was all I could do to push myself out of the squat and rack the bar. (Just as an aside, mid-squat is probably not the most opportune moment to feel the Spirit rushing in on you. But these things just happen. Again, we don’t control Love.) Here, the Indigo Girls were, singing right to my heart. All my questions these days DO seem to point me in crooked lines. And it’s only when I stop seeking—stop demanding—some definitive from the world and God that I DO feel, well, closer to fine.

These words from poet Jane Hirshfield occur to me now:

When I write, I don't know what is going to emerge. I begin in a condition of complete unknowing, an utter nakedness of concept or goal. A word appears, another word appears, an image. It is a moving into mystery.

What if we took this same nakedness into our prayer life, our contemplation, our ideas of God, our interactions with everyone we meet? What if we, as we moved into our mornings we thought of it as moving into mystery…a mystery that always leads us back to Love, if we let it? How would our lives be different then?

As I mentioned earlier, a few good friends came with me here to Colorado. Naturally, the subject of the looming election came up. But when we found our talk veering into polls and electoral prognosticating, we caught ourselves and steered back to the real and right now—a walk in the woods, a mango curry on a chilly night, playing board games, standing in awe before the technicolor beauty of Creation in a season of change. In other words, the present moment, which does not supply us with guarantees about the future, but which is the most precious thing we have because it is all we have. To me, that feels a lot like Love. And when I can hold on to that, tap into it, and share it with those around me, I feel a lot closer to fine.

Until next time, I wish you grace and peace,

Greg

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Pair the above reflection with this poem from retired Methodist pastor, Steve Garnaas-Holmes.

When the news is bad,
when living in the real world is hard work,
contemplation may seem like an escape.

But it's the way we breathe in the whole world
so we become greater than it is, and contain it;
and breathe in God until we are wholly contained.

It's how we let God hold our fears and our wishes,
and enter the world, even its pain,
with infinite grace.

It's the bee crawling into the lily, way deep,
the cypress roots working their way down,
the still moment before the athlete runs for the high bar.

Advent 2024

I’m excited to share that, starting Dec. 1, we will be resuming our seasonal email series, The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints And Prophets. This year, we’ll be exploring the theme of spiritual friendship, through profiles of some of history’s greatest spiritual friendships, like Francis and Clare of Assisi, Howard Thurman and Rufus Jones, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, Bill W. and Carl Jung. These daily emails go out from Dec. 1-25. Each includes a profile of a great mystic, saint or prophet, as well as an idea for a suggested practice to enrich your holiday season. Sign up here.

Upcoming Contemplative Gatherings

Upcoming services for Contemplation In The City are Oct. 22, Nov. 19 and Dec 21. Note that our Dec 21 service will be oriented around Blue Christmas and the solstice, and will include music, poetry and other elements to welcome the longest night of the year. We meet at Life In The City, 205 East Monroe Street, Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and conversation, and the service begins at 7pm. If you have questions about Contemplation In The City, Life In The City or Centering Prayer meditation, please contact Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.

Our friends at Metanoia Journey have a rich menu of contemplative offerings, including a regular Sunday morning Zoom and a beautiful in-person service on the first Sunday of each month. They are also hosting a one-day Centering Prayer retreat outside Austin on Dec. 21, which promises to be rich and meaningful.

Discovering Renewal: In April 2025, I will be leading a Contemplative track at the wonderful Discovering Renewal retreat. This very affordable, annual gathering in the gorgeous mountains of western North Carolina is an opportunity to relocate your center of spiritual gravity while also having lots of fun. I would love to share this retreat with you. Details here. Please note the Contemplative track is capped at 20 participants, and is more than half-full. If you’re interested, consider signing up sooner rather than later. Cancellation with a full refund (minus $25 processing fee) up to March 11th of 2025. Questions about Discovering Renewal? Email Greg Durham: greg@litcaustin.org.

**I’ve had questions about Montreat in light of Hurricane Helene. While the village was affected, the community came through the storm with much less damage than some other areas in the region.

Finally, if these emails are meaningful to you, subscribe and share. Any questions or comments, leave them in the Comments section below, or contact me at greg@litcaustin.org,

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