The Cosmic We with Barbara Holmes and Donny Bryant

Are you experiencing a crisis? How would you recognize it? 

On the 4th season of The Cosmic We, we are taking a pause from our normal format to explore the themes of Dr. Barbara Holmes' book Crisis Contemplation. Together, Dr. B and Dr. Donny explore ways we can apply it to the realities we face in our daily lives. This first episode is based on the themes of Chapter 1: Crisis.

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How has your experience of faith changed since your childhood? What shifts in the foundation of your faith have you intentionally and unintentionally made? 

In this final episode of season 3, Barbara and Donny have a conversation with Brian McLaren about the ways we construct God and how, in many ways, the Christian faith hasn’t fully grasped Jesus’s teachings. 

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a core faculty member of  The Living School and hosts the podcast Learning How to See, which are part of the Center for Action and Contemplation. He is also an Auburn Senior Fellowand is a co-host of Southern Lights. His newest books are  Faith After Doubt (January 2021), and Do I Stay Christian? (May 2022).

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• The transcript for this episode can be found here.

On this week’s episode, Barbara and Donny has a conversation with the Center for Action and Contemplation's Living School manager and spiritual director Gigi Ross about ways to embody contemplation when our paths of discovery and growth make unexpected shifts.

Gigi Ross serves as the CAC’s Living School Manager, supporting students in the Living School. She came to the CAC after spending her last six years in Washington, DC homeless, unemployed, and living in poverty. She resides in Albuquerque where she practices spiritual direction and is a member of the Threshold Choir, a group whose members sing for people who are dying. 

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• The transcript for this episode can be found here.

How can preaching be a way of relating to life and one another? On this episode, Dr. Frank A. Thomas joins Dr. Barbara Holmes and Dr. Donny Bryant for a conversation about his ability to preach in a way that is applicable to the life around us.

Frank A. Thomas, PhD, currently serves as the Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Th. Miller Professor of Homiletics and Director of the Academy of Preaching and Celebration at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana. Indicative of his great love of preaching, an updated and revised version of They Like to Never Quit Praisin’ God: The Role of Celebration In Preaching, considered by many to be a homiletic classic, was released in August 2013. For many years, Thomas has also taught preaching to Doctoral and Masters level students at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, and at Memphis Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the CEO of Hope For Life International, Inc., which formerly published The African American Pulpit. With a long history of excellence in preaching and preaching method, Thomas was inducted into the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers of Morehouse College in April 2003. Thomas also serves as a member of the International Board of Societas Homiletica, an international society of teachers of preaching.

Thomas holds a PhD in Communications (Rhetoric) from the University of Memphis, a Doctor of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary, Doctor of Ministry degrees from Chicago Theological Seminary and United Theological Seminary, a Master of Divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary, and a Master of Arts in African-Caribbean Studies from Northeastern Illinois University. 

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The transcript for this episode can be found here.

Have you ever experienced another culture’s interpretation of universal wisdom? Dr. Rachel Harding drops by to talk about ancestry and mysticism with “The Cosmic We” hosts Barbara Holmes and Donny Bryant. What do you think Dr. Harding means by travel being a mnemonic device? How have you witnessed that play out in your life? 

Rachel Elizabeth Harding, is Associate Professor of Indigenous Spiritual Traditions in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. A native of Georgia, a writer, historian and poet, Rachel is a specialist in religions of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora and studies the relationship between religion, creativity and s­ocial justice activism in cross-cultural perspective. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and holds an MFA in creative writing from Brown University and a PhD in history from the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Harding is author of A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness as well as numerous poems and essays. Rachel’s second book, Remnants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism and Mothering, combines her own writings with the autobiographical reflections of her mother, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, on their family history and the role of compassion and spirituality in African American social justice organizing.

Rachel is an ebomi (elder initiate) in the Terreiro do Cobre Candomble community in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where she has been a participant for over 20 years.

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The transcript for this episode can be found here.

What if mainstream Christianity prioritized contemplation? Fr. Richard Rohr joins Dr. Barbara Holmes and Dr. Donny Bryant to discuss reimagining our notions of love, power, charity, and accessing the “universal mind.” Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province. He is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the academic dean of the CAC’s Living School. An internationally recognized author and spiritual leader, Fr. Richard teaches primarily on incarnational mysticism, non-dual consciousness, and contemplation, with a particular emphasis on how these affect the social justice issues of our time.

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The transcript for this episode can be found here.

Welcome to Season 3 of The Cosmic We! As we start a brand new season, Dr. Barbara Holmes wanted to interview, and re-introduce you to the co-host of the show, Dr. Donald Bryant. Dr. Donald (Donny) Bryant is a champion for christ-centered preaching and is the lead Pastor of ONE Community Church, a multicultural and intergenerational church located in Farmington, MI. He is also the founder and CEO of Alden Oils, a major specialty oil supplier in the United States. The company has grown to be a primary supplier domestically and internationally of Organic and Non-GMO cooking oils and is the owner of the category leading brand, LifeOiL. He holds a bachelors of science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University, an MBA from the Broad School of Management (MSU), and a Doctorate of Ministry degree from Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Donald is the proud father of Kennedi, Isaiah, and Payton.

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The transcript for this episode can be found here.

Dr. Brian Swimme joins Dr. Barbara Holmes and Donny Bryant for this episode of the Cosmic We. Brian Swimme is the Director of the Center for the Story of the Universe and a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oregon in 1978 for work in gravitational dynamics. He brings the context of story to our understanding of the 13.7 billion year trajectory of the universe. Such a story, he feels, will assist in the emergence of a flourishing Earth community.

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Rev. Dorsey O'dell Blake joins this episode of The Cosmic We with Dr. Barbara Holmes and Dr. Donny Bryant. Rev. Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake, Faculty Associate, Leadership and Social Transformation, was officially installed as Presiding Minister of The Church for The Fellowship of All Peoples in October, 1994. During Dr. Blake’s installation service, Mrs. Sue Bailey Thurman presented Dr. Howard Thurman’s robe — which had not been worn since his death – to Dr. Blake as a symbol of her trust in his leading the congregation “so that there will be no past greater than our future.”

He has extensive field ministry experience with interfaith groups addressing justice and peace issues, including the California People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, The Interfaith Alliance for Prison Reform, Genesis and The San Francisco Interfaith Council. He served as a member of the steering committee of Religious Witness with Homeless People and has been in the forefront of peace and justice activities.

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Barbara and Donny welcome Cole Arthur Riley to this episode of The Cosmic We to explore the power of our stories. Cole Arthur Riley is writer who was formed by thinkers such as Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, Thomas Merton, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Julian of Norwich, to name a few. Cole studied writing at the University of Pittsburgh, but traces her love of words back to her father, who would bribe her and her siblings to write poems and stories to get out of chores, or for cold hard cash; and her gramma who was part writer, part sage. 

Cole currently serves as the spiritual teacher in residence with Cornell University’s Office of Spirituality and Meaning Making. She is the creator of Black Liturgies, a space that integrates spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black literature, and the Black body; and a project of The Center for Dignity and Contemplation where she serves as Curator. 

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This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at cac.org/podcastsupport Thank you!