Fred Bahnson is an immersion journalist of the soul and one of my favorite public contemplative intellectuals. If you’ve been hanging out around Contemplify, you have likely heard his name or seen links to his work. And I am sure that won’t be changing anytime soon. His most recent piece appears in Harper’s Magazine and is called ‘The Gate of Heaven is Everywhere’. It charts the contemplative turning in our times with gusto, charm, and sustained attention to the deep roots of the Christian contemplative tradition. Check it out, you’ll dig it.
Much of our conversation plunges into Fred’s book, Soil and Sacrament which is a record of a pilgrimage of depth across the topsoil of sundry landscapes. Bahnson traverses through community gardens (Christian & Jewish), a Bennedictine monastery, and communal subsistence farming in Mexico. Within these pages, The incarnational questions I always walk around with in the back pocket of my heart echo throughout - how then shall I live? How then shall we live?
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 practice and rhythm. I was elated to get my mitts on her latest book A New Silence: Spiritual Practices and Formation for the Monk Within. Our conversation flows out of this work, we talk about contemplation rhythms, parenting, the archetype of the monk, the via feminia and so much more. Reflecting on A New Silence makes up the bulk of our conversation today, but I want to really emphasize how A New Silence provides many exercises and practical ways of moving into a monastic way of life. A New Silence is for any seeker who hears the call to a contemplative path in their own context.