January NonRequired Reading List
Contemplify / NRR #98
“Find your contemplative community and enter it.”
— James Finley
“The way I see it, is that we have to create community and freedom,”
— Thomas Merton
(In the November 2024 NonRequired Reading I named the intent to take a look at each of these contemplative directives—“Find your contemplative practice and practice it. Find your contemplative community and enter it. Find your contemplative teaching and follow it.”— as an instigator for the next few opening musings. In December I harnessed my musing on practice. Today, community is up. )
Community is a limber word. Watch it stretch its definitions across madcap poses and positions. Community can bend, flex, and extend its meaning in unfathomable ways. When the contortions are too much to take, community breaks into a million pieces in predictable patterns. When this happens I cover my eyes and take in an easy breath as one question wets my lips, how can community be both a supple and fragile word? Culturally we have slapped community, like a bumper sticker, onto everything. So it remains difficult to define or celebrate. Intentional communities. Neighborhood communities. School communities. Brand communities. Rollerblading communities. Facebook communities.1 Flooding our senses we claim to know community in absence and abundance. Children lucky enough to play within a healthy community, do not realize their fortune until it has been spent.
Community, like the word friendship or love, is a titan in the common lexicon. Titan words are so powerful that they have to be watered down to approach them (let alone drink them in). That is why they get slapped on bumpers and stitched on throw pillows. Community is a nimble word so I do not mind rolling its edges or teasing its poor performances. No matter how you approach it, there are endless fickle snares to get caught in when conversing about mighty community. This is why I am wary of the word community. This is why I am in love with the word community. This is why I wrestle with this limber word, community.
I could ramble on like this until the turtles come home. So let me cinch my belt tighter, focus my musing a bit more and get down to contemplative community.
Now that community has been crushed into a pulp let us move on. The examined reverie at hand is contemplative community, an even smaller and more specific subset of community. This exam is meant to rouse thoughts and inspire incarnational considerations, not offer rarefied and unlivable decrees. The simple, “Find your contemplative community and enter it” is challenging enough. Plenty of questions march out of my mouth when I open the gates of community2 with contemplatives in mind. These were the first to file out:
Why is authentic contemplative community so hard to find locally?
Does belonging to a local contemplative community even matter? Is belonging to a religious community the same thing?
How is a contemplative community a part of the resistance to cultural hegemony?
If you are employed in a spiritual workplace or a church, can it be a contemplative community for you when you are compensated for your time, energy, presence?
Can rustic online outfits3 create a dispersed contemplative community?
To what contemplative communities did my heroes, mentors, elders, and lineage bearers belong? How might they call to me?
What if my closest kin are mystics and masters from bygone eras, can I claim them as a part of my belonging in a contemplative community?
Each question is a contextual dump truck. You have to wade through its mildewy container to see if it holds what you are looking for. Sifting through the smelliness and grime for the natural compost feeding the microbes in the soil of any contemplative community. Compost and garbage can be mistaken for one another.
Webster’s Dictionary defines community in a number of ways (see here) so I want to be plain and generous with defining a contemplative community. Here is a basic backboard definition I am going to slap when I dunk, and, be mocked by when I airball. Contemplative community is a group who need one another and are committed to responding to that need as a circle drawn from and towards contemplation. From there, finetune with nuance. And I would. Come to think of it, I will. That definition of contemplative community is as basic as a blank white backboard nailed to a garage with a netless rim. Gets the job done, but not one I would enjoy being on my home court. Let me try again with slight nuance to further articulate my own perspective. Contemplative community is a group who need one another and are committed to responding to that need as a circle drawn to and from the Presence of God in contemplation. That is better. Leans a little closer to my religious bent. Vocalize your own definition, as simple and true as you can without worry that it is final (I am sure I will tinker with mine). A good deal of contemplative communities baffle me and I have no interest in condemning them, but I have learned to be discerning about which ones I enter. The work of community is one I take seriously (hat tip to Wendell Berry among others). It has been a growing edge of mine to learn to assess which communities I need and which ones need me. What remains, I release and wish them well on their way. When released myself, I shake the dust off my sandals and remain on my way.
When I worked at a small college in Canada I would road trip with students across a couple of provinces to an Orthodox community every Holy Week. Those annual trips hold some of my dearest memories in that season of life. Holy Week in the Orthodox community was ordinary yet bountiful in religious richness and ritual with an unintentional educational masterclass on developing contemplative community. The Bishop charged with leading that Orthodox community was my spiritual director, he had a big laugh and was a decent bowler. He was instructive on the practical implications of community and twenty years later I still reflect upon those lessons. The living essence of the church was that it lived as a contemplative community. Let me light up a few examples to pass around.
After folks have visited the church for awhile and decided to join, the elders encouraged its new members to move closer to the church itself, for the church represented the center of their shared life. The practical reality of moving closer to the heart of the community meant families raised children together, ate meals around one another's tables, took care of the elders, shared lawnmowers, swapped stories on backporchs, prayed together, and so on. Lesson: proximity matters.
Each church service at this Orthodox church included a prolonged ‘passing of the peace’. The longest I have ever experienced. Everyone passed the peace to everyone else. Everyone hugged. When I was a first-time visitor it was unnerving. When I inquired why they took such care each week to pass the peace, I was told, “When you are in discord with another member, and you know that come Sunday you will be face-to-face and heart-to-heart in the practice of passing the peace with them, it hurries you along to move from stewing resentment towards hard-won reconciliation.” This is gospel wisdom. Lesson: being in right relationship takes consistent and attentive work, rhythms, and practices.
When I asked the Bishop what the church would do if they grew in size (by my account, they were roughly 50 to 60 members), he said if they reached around hundred they would start a new church. Church is not a place for passengers, he said, it is the work of the people. And if the church does not have room for your participation and gifts, or cannot see your gifts, it is too big. Lesson: community is created through active participation and needing each other's gifts for the flourishing of the community.
This community acuity formed me. I have never found another contemplative community that quite took their shared life as seriously. This is so quietly counterculture and radical it does not raise the notice of most, but when you get close to it, you get a big whiff of Christ.
Communities like this Orthodox crew are mind numbingly difficult to locate or drum up from scratch. And if you yearn for a community of depth with its own brand of contemplative weirdness, and you even seek to lay a foundation for the creation of one, another parade of questions will start trotting down the promenade. Tepid questions that rapidly boil on the range across beliefs, practices, values, ethics, politics and so forth. Boiling questions can become so hot that you might say the hell with it and slide back over onto your own private meditation cushion. Perhaps if this happens to you, community creation is not your bag (or you could just be overthinking the matter). Joining an existing community might be the more sustainable route. But didn’t I just say contemplative communities were mind numbingly difficult to locate? Yes, but there is more to it. I often think of the winsome exchange Eugene Peterson (who wrote a book called The Contemplative Pastor) had with On Being host Krista Tippett4.
Peterson: We go to a small church. When I was a pastor of a congregation, people would leave and say, “How do I pick a church?” And my usual answer was, go to the closest church where you live, and the smallest. And if, after six months, it’s just not working, go to the next smallest. [laughs]
Tippett: [laughs] OK, so what is it about small, rather than big?
Peterson: Because you have to deal with people as they are. And you’ve got to learn how to love them when they’re not lovable.
There it is. Contemplative communities are built from within by those who join, stay, participate, and learn how to love. This is not an easy path either. The thrumming undertone of this banter is that you cannot choose and curate your way into community. By their nature, contemplative communities are a school of incarnational love.
I wholeheartedly agree with Pastor Peterson, and readily admit my own caveat. I belong to multiple communities at varying levels of commitment (always good to remember that commitment goes both ways). Some of these communities are blatantly contemplative, others would sneeze in disbelief at the word. Yet, a little yeast makes the dough rise, so I knead my participation as contemplative participation whether the community names itself as such or not. It is an ongoing discernment that I do not take lightly, and truthfully, could probably ease up on.
You probably know plenty of folks who have been torched by a community, tossed aside like a burnt match. The thought of joining another community is worse than pickle juice on a canker sore. You might be one of them. To these folks I would like to say that I am sorry that has been your experience. I would not wish that upon anyone and hope you have enough gas left in the tank to risk it again. If you are unsure, I recommend befriend the dead. Hear me out. Some of my best friends are dead mystics. And their death has not stopped us from palling around together in contemplative community. Meister Eckhart and Hadejwich are dear companions who have long been dead but still surprise me with their friendship. They speak to me through their writings, and as James Finley might say, in their deathless presence. Those raised in traditions that highlight relating to the dead, communion of saints, or the mystical body of Christ have a leg up on building this type of contemplative community. If that is not your experience, don’t get twisted up. Explore how ancestors show up in your own religious tradition. Dead mystics can be a great place to begin a contemplative community.
(If dead mystics are not your bag, look for that one person in your life where you show up most vulnerably. Build off of that. Contemplative community does not happen without risk and commitment.)
Community is a limber word, and so is contemplative. Not knowing where to start when you smush them together is not a problem. There is a rich array of organized contemplative paths that hold potential and possibility, and then there is the one that you get to walk down and stumble. Even the bonafide religious in time-tested contemplative orders know they still have to walk their own path. As a soft yet concrete place to land, I offer this. Discernwhat your primary desire is for contemplative community.5 Your starting place is just that. With attention, intention, discernment and risk(!) participate in your own slow, greasy transformation within an oddly built contemplative community.
A few ideas to prime the pump (but truly, scratch your starting itch):
A circle of committed practitioners? Depending on your tradition check out Weekly Meditation and Contemplative Prayer (online), Centering Prayer (local), Lo-Fi & Hushed Contemplative Practice Sessions (online) or Zazen (online).
A rhythm of life? Check out Community of the Incarnation (new monastic), Practicing the Way (evangelical contemplative) Monastic Personality and Monastic Ideal (new monastic).
Deep study? Check out Turning to the Mystics with James Finley (podcast), The Cloud of Unknowing (online course), Liberation and the Cosmos: Conversations with the Elders (book), start or join a book club.
Path of vulnerability? Check out 12 Steps for Contemplatives (online), Peer Support in Chaotic Climate (online) and my experience has taught me that some communities and churches excel in this, but they are underground, and you don’t know about them until you hang around the post-church coffee hour long enough.
Action? Check out Franciscan Justice Circles (local), Zen Peacemakers (local and online) and of course, many more in your own neighborhood and area of interest.
Start informal, but committed. Show up in vulnerability before God, before Mystery, and with at least one other. Find the one, find the many.
Contemplify is basecamp for contemplatives. A communal watering hole to drink in musings, conversations, and practice that seek to kindle the examined life for contemplatives in the world. Contemplify is a community intent on not ending the adventure here, but a place of refuge, conversation, and refreshment to carry it all back into the rest of your communities. For that, I thank you once again for welcoming the offerings of Contemplify (podcasts, NonRequired Readings, Lo-Fi & Hushed Contemplative Practices) into your life. For those who wish to support Contemplify through monetary means, press the button below. Becoming a paid subscriber is a kindness that keeps Contemplify a free resource for contemplatives in the world. Some folks want to support with a few bucks simply for the sake of supporting Contemplify (I toast you, hidden dear ones. To join their ranks go here.). But paid subscribers are also automatically invited to join the weekly Lo-Fi & Hushed Practice Session on Wednesday mornings. A regular communal contemplative practice that supports the rhythms of your one wild and precious life. You can practice live with me and a community of practitioners or with the recording. Good contemplative fun. Hope to see you there.
(Also…because I am trying to make explicit what was implicit. If the Lo-Fi & Hushed Practice Sessions call to you but you don’t want to (or cannot) become a paid subscriber—no sweat—just add your name and email to this form and you will be included in the practice for free. Money should never be a barrier to contemplative practice or contemplative community. Practice makes practice. Always delighted to add more practitioners to the circle).6
January NonRequired Reading List
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
This is one of the most impressive books I have ever read. The science is beyond the boundaries of my intellect and yet I was riveted. When We Cease to Understand the World is a rattling fictional take on the real life discoveries of real groundbreaking scientists and philosophers–-Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—and the unforeseen implications of their findings on themselves, humanity, and the world.
When I reached the final pages of the last chapter, ‘The Night Gardner’, gripped by the tangled stories of intelligent seekers, insatiable curiosities, and madmen of discovery I was brought to a precipice, and I wept with a smile at the lesson waiting for my own common life. A rare moment of reading, one I long for, and scarcely get to mention.
When We Cease to Understand the World is for readers who don’t mind a logical downpour of rational connectivity with a heavy dose of mystery. (h/t to Jeffrey for the recommendation)
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
Reading about writing is a winter pastime for me. Annie Dillard is a master at the writing craft and Holy the Firm still flickers as one of my most distinguished uncategorizable books. When I picked up The Writing Life I held no expectations (the perfect way to start a book in my opinion). And without expectation, each essay within The Writing Life reads as if Dillard just entered a room talking. I like her for it. When Dillard steps through each opening she does not wash the bloodstains off of her hands or hide her broken teeth, these are the natural outcomes for her enduring knockout battles with the gods of writing. She smells of cigarettes and coffee. Part of her discipline is keeping these inspirational tools within hand. Everything is in service to the page. She mercifully shares the creative agony of late night writing sessions in a closed library, encouraging reviews of her most complex work by children, and what one can pinch from a daredevil pilot.
I put this book away admiring Annie Dillard’s intelligence and vigor. What appears effortless on her pages was painstakingly done. Her unparalleled devotion to writing, with the lesser angels of affliction and misery as the necessary companions of creativity. And the confessional adjustments she names that a writer must make to finish a work are outstanding, even if the work never feels complete.
The Writing Life is for any reader who is a student of craft and devotion.
The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979 by Gary Snyder(Get it at the Public Library or Bookshop)
Are you up for a longish passage that exemplifies the reasons I recommend The Real Work? Some readers will remember a segment of this quoted in last month’s missive. (Emphasis is mine)
“Periodic, repetitive behavior, to create, recreate, enforce, reinforce certain tendencies, certain potentialities, in the biopsyche. There is another kind of practice which also is habitual and periodic, but not necessarily as easily or clearly directed by the will: that’s the practice of necessity. We are six-foot-long vertebrates, standing on our hind legs, who have to breathe so many breaths per minute, eat so many BTUs of plant-transformed solar energy per hour, et cetera. I wouldn’t like to separate our mindfulness into two categories, one of which is your forty-minute daily ritual, which is “practice,” and the other not practice. Practice simply is one intensification of what is natural and around us all of the time. Practice is to life as poetry is to spoken language. So as poetry is the practice of language, “practice” is the practice of life. But from the enlightened standpoint, all of language is poetry, all of life is practice. At any time when the attention is there fully, then all of the Bodhisattva’s acts are being done.”7
If this quotes nuzzles and challenges you, The Real Work is for you.
Contemplify Update
Season Five has been put to bed. As always you can find the complete list of Contemplify episodes here and below are the four most recent episodes of this season.
Peter Traben Haas on Prayer as a Practice of Centering, Abiding, & Radiating (Season 5, Ep 15 - Season Finale)
Backporch Advent Outpost with Hadewijch and the Mother of Love (Season 5, Ep 14, Bonus)
Katherine May on Enchantment, Building Community, Tasting Words, and a Drink of Lake Water (Season 5, Ep 13)
Andrew Krivak on the Inheritance of Loss, Death as a Character, and Like the Appearance of Horses (Season 5, Ep 12)
All episodes are available from Contemplify through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts worth their salt.
Arts & Articles
LAST KICK AT THE CAN TOUR (Del Barber): My pal and songwriter extraordinaire Del Barber is hanging it up after one last tour. My spirit is cracked. This man and this friendship has meant a lot to me over the last twenty years. If you can get your ass in a seat for one of these February shows (all in Canada)—do it. I am trying to. You will hear a poetic, razor sharp man pour his whole self into melody and song for a small fee, but somehow you get to walk away richer with an enlarged soul. Here is my conversation from a few years back with Del Barber. Listen to his music, see him play while you can.
HOW AN ARTIST BEST KNOWN FOR POTTY-MOUTHED CARDS BECAME HER SMALL MINNESOTA TOWN’S SOUL (Star Tribune): An article about a letterpress, a badass woman, community, and a beautiful printing of The Rule of St. Benedict. Hits all of my buttons. (h/t to Alicia)
ASTREAM: WRITING RETREAT (Chris Dombrowski): Writer, teacher, and fly-fishing guide Chris Dombrowski (and friend of Contemplify, listen here) is leading a workshop May 19 - 23, 2025 that sounds aces, “We’re going to depart Missoula each morning, to spend full days on the Blackfoot, Clark Fork, and Bitterroot Rivers workshopping, reading, and engaging in generative exercises—not to mention birdwatching, eating good food, marveling at the scenery, maybe picking a few morels—returning to Missoula before dinner each evening.” Read the whole description via the link above and register if it calls to you.
TWENTY LESSONS ON TYRANNY (Thinking About…): Timothy Snyder is a citizen and offers some considered lessons on tyranny. This list is a distillation of his book, On Tyranny.
Contemplative
community
requires a limber spirit,
don’t forget
to stretch.
In the practice of life,
Paul
All Bookshop purchase links give a kickback to a local New Mexico bookstore and to Contemplify. Big thanks.
Facebook’s mission statement is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”. Originally enamored by the flashy and global connections, I ditched Facebook years ago as I did not like the way that was playing out.
If you are cut from the cloth that prefers a good dose of deeper analysis of contemplative community, read Chapter 11, ‘The Communal Context of Transformation’ in Spirituality and the Awakening Self: The Sacred Journey of Transformation by David Benner.
This is a living question and may sound self-serving, perhaps it is, but I have now been shoveling the sidewalk of Contemplify since 2016. Tis true, I recently asked for those that could to throw a few bucks into the coffer to keep the blade’s edge sharp while attempting to keep all offerings free for anyone who wants to participate. The exchange of life has been incredible, mutual, and life-enhancing. I am not concerned about growing in size, but growing in life. What I have learned is—like draws like.
“Answering God”, On Being with Krista Tippett with guest Eugene Peterson (originally aired December 22, 2016)
Discernment always includes the wily Spirit. I do not assume that is true for all, but needed to name it here.
Contemplify never wants money to be a filthy barrier to practice. So if you want to practice weekly with this contemplative basecamp at Lo-Fi & Hushed but aren’t able to offer support (no sweat!), drop your name and email here, I will add you to the next practice. We would be thrilled to have you practicing with us.
Synder, Gary, The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979 (New York: New Directions, 1980), p. 134.