Contemplify

Remembering Lerita Coleman Brown on Waiting for a Word in the Heart

20 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Remembering Lerita Coleman Brown

Stay Outside (or Non-Liturgical Liturgical Calendar Musing)

12 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Musing on my personal non-liturgical liturgical calendar that runs from December 11 - December 10 each calendar year.

Gail Straub on Embracing Our Human Family

01 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"In radiant, lyrical prose, Gail Straub takes us on a voyage like no other, both into little-known places across the globe and, most memorably, the i...

Mark Longhurst on The Holy Ordinary

18 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Longhurst is an author and contemplative guide who has spent years exploring the sacred dimensions of everyday life. In our conversation we talk ...

Haleh Liza Gafori Brings Water to the Thirsty

04 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Haleh Liza Gafori is a translator, performance artist, vocalist, and educator whose work bridges ancient Persian mysticism with contemporary spiritual...

Contemplative Parenting with Aizaiah G. Yong and Nereyda Yong

20 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"This book is just what the world needs right now. At a time when tensions are hot, divisions are growing, and uncertainty is the order of the day, S...

[Rebroadcast] Dr. Larry Ward on America's Racial Karma, the Fragrance of Wisdom, and Learning How To Suffer Less

13 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is a repost of my conversation with Dr. Larry Ward. Dr. Ward passed away on August 19 at his home in Rhode Island. He was a Buddhist teacher, aut...

Amy Frykholm on Journey to the Wild Heart

06 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"You can trust Amy Frykholm as a modern-day amma who knows the terrain of the soul. Reading Journey to the Wild Heart is like going out to the desert ...

Todd Davis on Ditch Memory

23 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"To read a new and selected collection is to experience the evolution of a voice, in this case an essential voice in American poetry. To sit with the...

Sr. Laura Swan, OSB on the Radical Wisdom of the Beguines

09 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"…Swan's book provides an accessible overview of beguine spirituality in the context of their own times…[it] does a good job of explaining both th...

Patrick Boland on Contemplative Leadership

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Patrick Boland is an author, teacher, coach, and consultant. In our conversation we talk about his book The Contemplative Leader: Uncover the Power of...

Cynthia Bourgeault on Thomas Keating, Christian Nonduality, and Mystical Maps

12 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault is a mystic, teacher, writer, Episcopal priest. In our conversation we talk about her book Thomas Keating: The Making of ...

Intensification of Life (Season 6 Trailer)

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"Practice simply is one intensification of what is natural and around us all the time. Practice is to life as poetry is to spoken language. So as poet...

Peter Traben Haas on Prayer as a Practice of Centering, Abiding, & Radiating

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On this last episode of Season Five of Contemplify, we welcome Rev., Dr. Peter Traben Haas. Rev., Dr. Peter Traben Haas rises each morning watching th...

Backporch Advent Outpost with Hadewijch and the Mother of Love

08 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Backporch Advent Outpost with Hadewijch and the Mother of Love visit contemplify.com

Katherine May on Enchantment, Building Community, Tasting Words, and a Drink of Lake Water

24 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"I love Katherine May's new book, Enchantment.… It's a beautiful offering of light, truth and charm in these strange, dark times." — Anne Lamott K...

Andrew Krivak on the Inheritance of Loss, Death as a Character, and Like the Appearance of Horses

10 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"Andrew Krivak is a novelist, poet, and memoirist whose work has been compared to William Faulkner's in its rich sense of place, to Wendell Berry's in...

Remembering Dr. Barbara Holmes (Replay of 2016 Conversation)

27 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"Dr. B was passionate about expanding our understanding of the Christian contemplative tradition, reminding us that contemplation isn't the sole domai...

Amy Leach on Becoming Salt of the Universe

20 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"I was recently giving a sermon and found myself spontaneously quoting from Amy Leach's singular and surprising new book. I expect many readers will ...

Ben Katt on Getting Quiet, Midlife, and the Power of Ritual (also, we chat about David Hasselhoff)

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Katt has worked with On Being, as an ordained minister, an advanced meditation teacher, and author. His first book, The Way Home: Discovering the...

Jeffrey Martin on Thank God We Left the Garden, Letters, and Literature

22 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"[Jeffrey Martin writes] Songs that are stark in their simplicity, yet emotionally rich in a way that can catch your breath in your throat or leave yo...

Susan Murphy on Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis, the vast meaning of Country, and Cooling Fires

08 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"A powerful and important plunge into the reality of the mind and climate." — Joan Halifax, author of Being with Dying and Standing at the Edge Susa...

Drew Jackson on Touch the Earth, Poetry as a Lifesaver, and the Importance of Lucille Clifton

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"In Touch the Earth, Drew Jackson's poetry offers a word-weary world a new language of engagement, disruption, and insight. As with all great poetry, ...

Tracy Cochran on the Art of Presence, Mistakes as Practice, & the Grief of Awakening

11 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tracy Cochran is a writer, meditation teacher, and editorial director of Parabola, an acclaimed quarterly magazine that draws on the world's cultural ...

Brian McLaren on Life After Doom, Patient Urgency, & Complexifying Hope

28 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for ...

Cassidy Hall on Queering Contemplation, Letting Go of Thomas Merton, and Expanding Foundations

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cassidy Hall is an author, award-winning filmmaker, podcaster, ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, and leading voice in contemplative sp...

Dr. Larry Ward on America's Racial Karma, the Fragrance of Wisdom, and Learning How To Suffer Less

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Larry Ward is a senior teacher in Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village tradition, the author of the book America's Racial Karma, and...

David James Duncan on the Unintentional Menagerie of Sun House, Friendship, and the Beguines

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

David James Duncan is the author of the classic novels The River Why and The Brothers K, the story collection River Teeth, the nonfiction collection a...

Harmonizing In The Empty Fullness

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Season Five Trailer Contemplify.com

Turn the Morning into Forever

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A musing on time, eternality, and childeren

Reduced to the Scale of Our Competence

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A musing on limitations

Eat the Wild Thing

12 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A musing on wild things and ingesting God

Lo-Fi & Hushed / 2023 Winter Solstice Session / To Know the Dark

02 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Each solstice and equinox Contemplify offers a public Lo-Fi & Hushed contemplative practice session for both free and supporting subscribers of the No...

Listen to the Rice, the Rice Will Teach You Everything with Lucien Miller

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"Oshida's life and legacy is an experience of the spiritual senses knowing the mystical voice. Biblical in sources and Buddhist in form, reading this ...

In Hard Times, In All Times, Eat Sacred Words

09 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft an...

Kim Haines-Eitzen on Practicing the Cello in the Dark and Sonorous Deserts

25 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Kim Haines-Eitzen is a Professor of Religious Studies with specialties in Early Christianity, Early Judaism, and other ancient Mediterranean Relig...

Lerita Coleman Brown on Waiting for a Word in the Heart

11 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"I highly recommend What Makes You Come Alive to churches, religious and educational institutions, and spiritual seekers everywhere who are looking f...

Lo-Fi & Hushed Contemplative Practice Session (September 2023 / Autumn Equinox)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lo-Fi & Hushed is weekly space for the contemplative practice of lectio divina with poetry. This practice is graceful, transformative, and subdued. Lo...

David Shumate on When Words Become Thunder

13 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"David Shumate's High Water Mark is absolutely fresh and unpredictable. . . . You will be surprised by your confrontation with the utterly first rate....

Douglas E. Christie on Depth Without Resolution

30 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Douglas E. Christie, Ph.D., is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is author of The Word in the Desert: Scripture and ...

Carmen Acevedo Butcher Follows the Mystical Tugs on the Heart

16 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Carmen Acevedo Butcher, PhD, is an author, teacher, poet, and award-winning translator of spiritual texts. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Br...

Lisa Wells on Holding a Fierce and Loving Gaze

02 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lisa Wells is an author, poet, and co-founder of a small, nonprofit press based in Seattle, Washington called Letter Machine Editions. Her latest work...

Scott Avett on Being Here for the Feast

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Scott Avett is a visual artist, musician, and songwriter. No amount of descriptors quite do him justice. Scott's work was met by my ears before my eye...

Haleh Liza Gafori on Putting Mystery in the Middle

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

    Haleh Liza Gafori is a translator, vocalist, poet, and educator born in New York City of Iranian descent. Her latest work, is a translation of R...

Belden Lane on the Unbroken Desert of God

20 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Belden Lane is Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University, author of numerous books including The Solace of Fierce Landscape...

Your Naked Freedom

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Good poetry is inherently spiritual. It is a clown car of interpretation. Once a door of perception is opened, endless and surprising "Ahas" tumble ou...

Spare Me Nothing

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A musing on practice, desire, and its evolutions vist contemplify.com

James Finley on the Healing Path

30 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I was overly giddy, strangely nervous, but above all grateful to be in conversation with James Finley about his breathtaking new book, The Healing Pat...

It's Not About the Beer, It's About the Beer

25 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A musing inspired by Shawn Askinosie's story about Belgium beer brewing monks and the parables of Jesus from Feb 2023   vist contemplify.com

Prairie Eye & Woods Eye

08 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A musing on Bill Holm's "Horizontal Grandeur" pulled from his book of essays, The Music of Failure.

Sitting on the Present Moment

24 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A musing on the present moment of awareness that holds everything. 

Engaged Contemplation in a Heartbreaking World with Fr. Adam Bucko

27 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Father Adam Bucko has been a committed voice in the movement for the renewal of Christian Contemplative Spirituality and the growing New Monastic move...

Heathen

09 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Musing from November 9th, 2022 inspired by by reading Chris Dombrowski's The River You Touch   Visit contemplify.com

Vitality Out of Emptiness with Fr. David Denny

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Fr. David Denny is a lifelong  seeker whose commitment to the unfolding mystery of life has brought him to explore the deserts of place and soul.  I...

The River You Touch with Chris Dombrowski

02 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

I have been waiting years to have this conversation with author, poet, and fly-fishing guide Chris Dombrowski. There is a kinship I feel with Chris's ...

Inarticulate as Watercolors, Brazen as Graffiti

17 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Musing from September 16, 2022 visit contemplify.com

Nine Poems from Coffin Honey by Todd Davis

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

I asked Todd Davis if he could read some of his poems from his latest collection called Coffin Honey. And he generously said yes. Take a beath, find a...

A Revelatory Elegy of Unknowing with Todd Davis (author of Coffin Honey)

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The poems of Todd Davis sharpen a reader's spirit and focus, on the bloodstained teeth breaking apart the day-to-day doldrums and on the mythic imagin...

Contemplative Gleanings from the Hermits of Big Sur with Paula Huston

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Paula Huston has written a book, The Hermits of the Big Sur, that charts the history of the New Camaldoli Hermitage. A history born amidst Vatican II ...

Bill Porter (Red Pine) on Zen and Taoist Masters, Mountain Hermits, & the Life of a Translator

02 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

(My audio starts shaky, but gets better after 8 minutes) Bill Porter, aka Red Pine, calls the hermit life, "graduate school for the spiritually incli...

Here There Are Woods, Foxes (Season 3 Trailer)

30 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The hermit life is cool. That is the stone that skips across this season of Contemplify. The urging, the calling, to retreat from the hustle of the re...

An Old Growth Forest

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Musing from May 31, 2022

Solitude at the Center of All Beauty with Fenton Johnson

05 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Fenton Johnson is the author of At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life.  His book Geography of the Heart:  A Memoir received...

The Harmonic Resonance Found in Unknowing with Brie Stoner

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Brie Stoner is a juggernaut of creativity who channels these forces as a musician, artist, podcaster, writer, teacher, and mother. Her latest project ...

A Wild Mystical Woman of the Desert with Amy Frykholm

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Amy Frykholm is a writer, scholar, and journalist. Long time listener's will recognize Amy as the second guest ever on Contemplify when we spoke about...

Enlivening the First Christmas with Stephen Mitchell

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Mitchell is a translator, author, and poet. I was first introduced to his work through his translation of the Tao Te Ching. Stephen was educat...

Backporch Advent Outpost with Chris Dombrowski (#2)

12 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Blessed Darkness and Blessed Light, this Advent season. Here we are again, In the midst of Season Two of Contemplify and I am sliding in another bonus...

Backporch Advent Outpost with Todd Davis (#1)

05 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Blessed Darkness and Blessed Light this Advent season. Here, In the midst of Season Two of Contemplify I am sliding in a bonus episode. This is the fi...

The Monastic Heart & Prophetic Imagination with Sr. Joan Chittister

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sister Joan Chittister is a member of the Benedictine Sisters, played a huge hand in developing the Charter of Compassion, was president of the Leader...

Slow Yourself to be Awed with J. Drew Lanham

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

J. Drew Lanham is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Master Teacher, and Certified Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University . He's...

Gary Nabhan (aka Brother Coyote) on Wisdom Gleaned from Fishers & Farmers

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Gary Nabhan (aka Brother Coyote) is an Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, a first generation Lebanese-American, seed saver, agro-ecologist, ethnobotanist,...

Season Two Trailer

30 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On the cusp of season 2, I was ruminating on how I might introduce the tonality of this series of conversations. The September musing jumped to mind. ...

Your Work Should Be the Praise of What You Love (September Musing)

21 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

September 2021 Musing on Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy of life. Season 2 of Contemplify is getting warmed up on the stove. I'll let you know when ...

Like People or Dogs

17 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This marks the 100th episode of Contemplify. We celebrate the triple digit with a musing and an announcement.

Charlie Chaplin in the Gears of Modern Times

17 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A contemplative musing on machines, lifeblood, and facing the facts of life.  Visit contemplify.com for more shenanigans  

Scott Ballew on Talking to Mountains & the Sublimity of Sad Songs

23 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Scott Ballew is songwriter from Austin, Texas. He earns his keep as the Head of Films and Commercials at YETI, producing and directing films that insp...

Tending to the Spiritual Interior of Language with Lia Purpura

18 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There is so much I can say about the poet and essayist Leah Purpura. I'll give this brief introduction, Lia was a finalist for the National Book Criti...

Deadstock in the Storm with Jeffrey Foucault

09 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jeffrey Foucault is a top shelf songwriter. Foucault has a slew of albums worth your collection and his latest album, Deadstock, should be the first...

Being is Action with Andrew Krivak

07 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Krivak is the author of three novels: The Signal Flame (2017), a Chautauqua Prize finalist, and The Sojourn (2011), a National Book Award f...

Immersion Journalist of the Soul with Fred Bahnson

17 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Fred Bahnson is an immersion journalist of the soul and one of my favorite public contemplative intellectuals. If you've been hanging out around Conte...

Answering the Monk Within with Beverly Lanzetta

03 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Beverly Lanzetta is a profound teacher who invites her readers and students to engage in the fullness of Mystery each day through the cultivation of p...

Advent Outpost from the Backporch (#3)

21 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I'm closing this Advent Series out with some poetic gifts. A few friends are stopping by to raise a glass and offer a poem or prayer, though I am unsu...

Advent Outpost from the Backporch (#2)

07 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

I've asked some friends to swing by and offer a few words. In this second Advent outpost, we move throuogh the course of a day, from dawn to dusk. one...

Advent Outpost from the Backporch (#1)

29 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

My wife and I started an Advent neighborhood get together last year; soup, wine, bread, cheese, poetry, stories, hymns, and children bellowing. A euch...

Apprentice to the Slow Immediacy of Daily Life with Douglas E. Christie

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It took me months to read Douglas E. Christie's book Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology. I found it a joy to read slowly, so...

Everybody Now: Climate Emergency and Sacred Duty

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today's episode is first. It is one voice among many podcasters from around the globe releasing the same episode, a collective call for awareness, gri...

Moth & Mother / New Foundations

26 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Ruminations on divine union and the contemplative uprisings available in each moment. Visit contemplify.com to sign up for the Contemplify NonRequired...

Subtle Sacraments & The Quiet Mind

05 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Exploring the subtle sacraments that animate our lives and the process of quieting the mind in words and silence. Visit contemplify.com to sign up for...

Poetic Nature of Walking with Jonathon Stalls

11 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours …but it is itse...

Kitchen Music Society of Sorrow and Delight

15 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A plucked musical movement, hairpin poetic turns, mythical stories in rough harmonics. Baptize me into this Kitchen Music Society of Delights and Sorr...

Building Character that Bends Towards Mystery with Christian Miller

13 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"Christian Miller teaches us that the road to virtue lies in humility about our own virtue and an acceptance that others are struggling with their fl...

Manifesto Contemplatio

15 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection." Wendell Berry, Manifesto: Mad Farmer Libe...

Birthday Questions (39 Laps Around the Sun)

02 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Birthdays are akin to over-excited neighbors. You either appreciate their intrusions or avoid them like Homer Simpson does Ned Flanders. I treat birth...

Absorbing this World Fully with Todd Davis (Of the Invisible #5)

12 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Maurice Manning on the Symbolic & Actual (Of the Invisible #4)

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"Although Manning has been lauded throughout the country for his work — garnering accolades from some of the major poets of our time, like W.S. Merw...

Jericho Brown (Of the Invisible #3)

15 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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

Chris Dombrowski: Part Two (Of the Invisible #2)

08 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

I hoped for some last gesture beyond a handshake, writes Chris Dombrowski in Ragged Anthem, a soulful book of longing that is as comic as it is refle...

Chris Dombrowski: Part One (Of the Invisible | Poetry Series #1)

01 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"Chris Dombrowski has proven himself to be among the best poets of his generation. As one of those readers who admired and enjoyed his first two books...

Of the Invisible (Poetry Series Trailer)

25 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This series will introduce you to two poets who help me circle the mystery: Chris Dombrowski and Jericho Brown. My hope is that through these convers...

Cultivating Contemplation & Mysticism of Rhythm (Life of a Day Finale)

18 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This final episode of the Life of a Day series is all about you. It is about offering a reframing of your day with a new way of seeing, a new way of s...