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Spiritual Practices: Personal Practice

resources to support contemplative beginners and adepts, including individuals, families, small groups and congregational practices

Books & PDFs

12 Tiny Things: Simple Ways to Live a More Intentional Life               Awe by Dacher Keltner     Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth          Bread for the Day: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers, Year B 2021          Picture of Centering Prayer     Creating a Life with God, Revised Edition     Dear Anxiety, Let's Break Up: 40 Devotions to Conquer Worry and Fear          Dimming the Day: Evening Meditations for Quiet Wonder     Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee     Earth Bound     Eternal Heart: The Mystical Path to a Joyful Life     Every Thing is Sacred     Feed the Wolf: Befriending Our Fears in the Way of Saint Francis     The Healing Path:  A Memoir and an Invitation     Heart Medicine by Radhule Weininger     Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace     The How     How Not to Be Afraid: Seven Ways to Live When Everything Seems Terrifying     I Am Diosa     IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World     In Good Time: 8 Habits for Reimagining Productivity, Resisting Hurry, and  Practicing Peace: Michel, Jen Pollock: 9781540900548: Amazon.com: Books     A Journey of Sea and Stone: How Holy Places Guide and Renew Us     Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage     Listening to the Heart of Genesis               The Power of Ritual     Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher     Practice the Pause: Jesus' Contemplative Practice, New Brain Science, and What It Means to Be Fully Human     Reclaiming Rest: The Promise of Sabbath, Solitude, and Stillness in a  Restless World | Broadleaf Books     Reconnect     9781587435386.jpg          Cover for Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul               The Spacious Path     Spiritual Consipation                    The Universal Christ (Paperback)          Wake Up to Wonder: 22 Invitations to Amazement in the Everyday: Karen  Wright Marsh: 9781587435805 - Christianbook.com          Wild Belief: Poets and Prophets in the Wilderness

Journals

     Create Your Own Calm     Picture of Get Outside     Introvert by Design - Lifeway     Journal of Radical Permission     Made Out of Stars     Monk Manual     Sensual Faith     Wonder Seeker

Video

Learn About Brother David Steindl-Rast - Gratefulness.orgTed Talk: “Want to be happy? Be Grateful" with Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk and interfaith scholar, who suggests we stop, look, and find a reason for gratitude in every situation.

     

Earth Monastery              Monk in the World

Dr. Kristin Neff offers free Tips for PracticesGuided Meditations, and Self-Compassion Exercises

Lapping Waves at Sunset on Lake Superior is nine minutes of calm and respite.

A fantastic book; and the trailer is a beautiful contemplative practice.

           

Mindful Silence is a film series featuring Phileena Heuertz and her book Mindful Silence: The Heart of Christian Contemplation. See also the 14 films of Earth, Our Original Monastery based on Christine Valters Paintner's book of the same name.

Blogs, Podcasts & Articles

The Center for Mindful Self-Compassion offers 10 Self-Compassion Practices for the Crisis in Ukraine.

WE CONSPIRE

We Conspire is a monthly email from the Center for Action and Contemplation featuring wisdom and stories from the emerging Christian contemplative movement and alternative orthodoxy.

Learn more and sign up here.

Illustration of woman in yoga pose

We are humbled to be featured in Living Lutheran's January, 2022 article and study guide, Contemplating the New Year; Lutherans Explore Meditation, Mindfulness, and Contemplative Practices; article by Meghan Johnston Aelabouni; study guide by Robert C. Blezard.

\Barbara Holmes, Untitled 2 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.

Richard Rohr spent a week Contemplating Creation; The Dance of Life features a singular moment of awareness from Sherri Mitchell (Penobscot).

Daily Round from Kitty O’Meara.

John Dear's 2013 inspired reflection on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s book, Thou, Dear God.

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation: always profound.

Three lists of Music Curated for Yoga

Poetry Unbound, with Padraig O Tuama, can be found on Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle PodcastsOvercast, or wherever you listen. Poetry Unbound+, featuring Padraig O Tuama interviewing poets about how their work explores biblical narratives and characters, can be found on The On Being Project's YouTube Channel.

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Westminster Presbyterian Church's Thin Places, is a quarterly ecumenical newsletter of writings and individual, small group and congregational prayer opportunities.

Upper Room Books offers a free daily prayer email, New Every Morning.

Websites

Alignment: Interfaith Contemplative Practices - Home | Facebook

Alignment shares contemplative practices so that learning to pray together, we might work for justice together.

Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.

Contemplative Outreach is a spiritual network of individuals and small faith communities committed to living the contemplative dimension of the Gospel. The common desire for Divine transformation, primarily expressed through a commitment to a daily Centering Prayer practice, unites this international, interdenominational community.

Samuel Rahberg logo

Wood & Water offer online retreats throughout the year on topics addressing current events and issues.

 

OnBeing's A Care Package for Uncertain Times: a collection of podcasts, poetry, meditations and reflection for however you’re processing this moment.

The Center for Action and Contemplation shares Fr. Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, offers numerous helpful podcasts, excellent online courses, their intensive Living School - and much more.

Minnesota Contemplative Outreach offers:

In Our Library - Journals/Journaling

               Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen  -     By: Rachel Hackenberg     

Courses & Webinars

BIRTHING THE HOLY PRAYER CYCLE

Christine Valters Paintner created a prayer cycle to accompany her book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal (Ave Maria Press). The prayer cycle includes video, audio, and written guides  for Morning and Evening Prayer. It is a seven-week cycle. The full text and audio for the prayer cycle are available here.

It is available for a free will donation/offering.

Learn more and register/begin to download here.

A 6-part course based on Diana Butler Bass's Grateful. Includes lectures, mini-practice sessions, and conversations with other writers about how giving thanks has made a difference in their lives.

Register here.

In Our Library

     25 Books Every Christian Should Read: A Guide to the Essential Spiritual  Classics (A Renovare Resource): Julia L. Roller: 9780060841430: Amazon.com:  Books     Book - Paperback     Across the Threshold, Into the Questions by Caren Goldman, Ted Voorhees, Amy-Jill Levine (9780819222558) - PaperBack - Religion & Spirituality Christianity                Book - Paperback     Available from Amazon.com or Material Media                    Cover Image     Finding Jesus, Discovering Self: Passages to Healing and Wholeness  -     By: Caren Goldman, William Dols     Fly Fishing -The Sacred Art: Casting a Fly as a Spiritual Practice  -     By: Rabbi Eric Eisenkramer, Rev. Michael Attas     Grace's Window: Entering the Seasons of Prayer  -     By: Suzanne E. Guthrie     In God's Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer               Holy Spokes : The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels          iv-bookcover-trans     Listening for God: Contemporary Literature and the Life of Faith, Volume 1  -     Edited By: Paula J. Carlson, Peter S. Hawkins    By: Paula Carlson     Making All Things New – TEP Books               Book - Paperback          The Phoenix Affirmations: A New Vision for the Future of Christianity  -     By: Eric Elnes          Front Cover Preview Image - 1 of 12 - Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home     Prayer - Orbis Books          The Prayer Wheel by Patton Dodd, Jana Riess and David Van Biema     main product photo               Paperback Savoring God Book                    The Thirst of God     9780801027628: Tree of Life, The: Models of Christian Prayer     To Pray and to Love: Conversations on Prayer with the Early Church                    Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements  -     By: Christine Valters Paintner     The Way of Jesus     2322786          Book - Paperback     Wisdom Distilled from the Daily