Ep. 70 This is the Way: Contemplative Christianity w/ Father Brendan Williams

Episode Summary

Have you ever paused long enough to consider why you continue pursuing the spiritual path? After all the scandals, abuse, religious trauma, and oppressive theology, why are you still here?

This same question hit me last week during church and I didn’t have a profound answer. For whatever reason, I just can’t quit my search for the Sacred.

I bet you’ve asked a similar question, or at least had the honesty to wonder just what the hell you are still doing in a movement that has caused you so much heartache. If eternal punishment is off the table, why even bother? I believe our latest episode on Holy Heretics provides an answer.

According to today’s guest, spirituality isn’t about escaping the fire of hell, it is about your personal transformation. In short, you must become fully human in order to become fully divine. Sounds like the historical Jesus doesn’t it? A closer look at ancient Christianity reveals a novel truth—what Jesus was attempting to create was not a path to heaven but the revelation of the Way to birth a fully divine human race, a people as radically alive, compassionate, and enlightened as he is himself.

What Jesus lived into and enacted was a new life of “kingdom consciousness,” available now to every person willing to claim their divine inheritance. The invitation is clear: you can walk the same road Jesus walked and attain the same deification he attained. The point to all your spiritual seeking isn’t to sin a little less, or ensure your spot in heaven, it is to become like Jesus himself. That, my friends, is the point.

In today’s episode with monk and mystic Father Brendan E. Williams, we attempt to show you how to walk that road, what spiritual tools you will need along the way, and how to begin the practice of daily contemplation and meditation in our modern world. If you are seeking a more contemplative pilgrimage back to God, if you are ultimately wondering why to continue the spiritual journey, this conversation will provide a more mystical pathway forward, allowing you to discover the divine secret within you.

Bio:

The Rev. Father Brendan E. Williams, CMR is a monk and a priest of the Episcopal Church, and serves as Prior of the Episcopal monastic order, The Communion of the Mystic Rose. He also serves in chaplaincy, parochial ministry, and retreat leadership. Father Brendan is a scholar of religion and mystical theology, a yogī, a professional spiritual director and meditation instructor. He frequently writes and offers teaching in comparative religion, ascetical theology, contemplative practices, Indo-Tibetan and native Gaelic traditions. He can be found online at: www.brendanelliswilliams.com.

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Show notes:

http://www.sophiasociety.org/podcast/this-is-the-way

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This episode was produced by The Sophia Society and written by Gary Alan Taylor.  Music is by Faith in Foxholes.