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Queering Attention
Attention is the undistracted self, willing to truly look, deeply understand, and release attachment to moments before or after what is present. Attention is not concerned with naming, capturing, or solving— because attention’s primary concern is presence, love, and being. For the contemplative, attention is an inner posture of presence. A posture of surrender.
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Queering the Desert
But the desert also invites us to remain and feel, to be still, root, grow, heal, and understand. And as the desert monastics suggest, the only way through the deserts of life is to remain in the practice of examining the self, to stay in the Divine’s presence as we unveil ourselves, to truly see…
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I Kissed a Tree and I liked it
I knew I needed to reawaken this connectivity to the trees and mountains. So as soon as I could find some time in my work schedule, I took myself to the nearest mountain range. Saturated in solitude at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, I steeped myself in a time of rituals, pauses, fires,…
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Chasing What Is Known
What is known within me? I ask myself. What can I take home from this place, this encounter, this knowing amid all the unknown? Is our only real ground groundlessness? Is the only ground temporary ground?
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Allowing Ourselves to Unfold & The Freedom Found in Ritual
Everyone carries their own true self in their own way, in their own words, and in their own time. And that is also beautifully queer. My true self is the queer way I rest my ear to the chest of a tree, listening for its heartbeat.
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Queering Contemplation: Excerpt + Events + Interviews + Reviews
Queer is the way I tilt my head to look at the world. Queerness, in my life, has been not only about sexuality but also about expanse, curiosity, openness, pleasure, weirdness, love, oddity, and liberation
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My Whole Life is Queer: An Interview with Rev. Kittredge Cherry
A portion of this interview will be included in my forthcoming book, Queering Contemplation: Finding Queerness in the Roots and Future of Contemplative Spirituality.
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“One need not be a contemplative monk in a remote monastery to be overwhelmed by a sense of human inter-connection.”
Jim Forest was an activist and author, but more than anything he was a man of relationship and ritual. To know Jim was to know his family, his partner Nancy Forest-Flier, to feel his friendship, and to see the countless ways he saw and loved the world with great wonder. Jim looked and listened with…
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Heart Work: A Conversation with Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows
“I long for the day we don’t need food pantries and we don’t need Black Lives Matter protest to state the obvious. Black Lives Matter and people should be fed and not hungry in the richest country in the world.”
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Being A Truth Teller: A Conversation with Sophfronia Scott
An interview with author Sophfronia Scott, “If we can come to the table with what’s missing, only then can we find the possibility of completion.”
Dr. Cassidy Hall, DMin, MDiv, MTS, MA 