The Pocket Contemplative

In this continuation of a look (from Notre Dame sociologist Chrisitan Smith) at the religious world that Millennials in particular are living in, Dave Schmelzer will continue to look at some large, cultural forces at play before turning to some self-inflicted wounds from religion.  

Mentioned on this podcast

Register your interest here for this fall's Faith Part 2 course, a free, online look at how the Christian tradition (sometimes partnering with other contemplative traditions and modern neuroscience) encourages us into an unexpected second chapter of faith after, perhaps, our initial experience of faith has faltered. 

Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, by Christian Smith

Evangelical parents are taught that a key part of their parental responsibility is to raise their kids to be Christians. But that's becoming, in an understatement, far more challenging  says notable Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith. In this revealing first of a two part podcast, Dave Schmelzer will walk you through some of the large-scale cultural forces that, Smith reports, are driving religion to a kind of cultural obsolescence. 

Mentioned on this podcast

Register your interest here for this fall's Faith Part 2 course, a free, online look at how the Christian tradition (sometimes partnering with other contemplative traditions and modern neuroscience) encourages us into an unexpected second chapter of faith after, perhaps, our initial experience of faith has faltered. 

Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, by Christian Smith

Many earnest evangelicals and charismatics, Dave Schmelzer among them, have found comfort and connection in learning to hear God's voice in the spirit taught by the great 17th-century contemplative Brother Lawrence. But an insurmountable problem usually comes up: as delightful as the conversation itself is, lots and lots of things that are important to us don't actually work out in ways we'd felt like God was telling us they would. And, eventually, we wise up and quit this dialogue. But that is not the advice of some great contemplatives, who tell us that we've been making one key mistake all along. If we just clear that up, we're told we'll get a sea of benefits that will give us "solid ground" to stand on in the chaos that is life on earth. 

Mentioned on this podcast:

Register your interest here for the 8-week Faith Part 2 course coming this fall. 

The book touched on here: The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence

Many of the most prominent social activists in the last half century or so have also been contemplatives: Howard Thurman, the Dalai Lama, and Thomas Merton among others. Does the sort of spirituality we talk about here have things to offer in a world like ours where people feel daily outrages flowing through their media feeds? Might our practices actually be negative--in that moving past constant reactivity might make us too passive? But surely constant outrage mostly leads to hopelessness (and unpleasant days). Dave Schmelzer is joined by Grace Schmelzer and Steve Joh (a former pastor who currently leads a network of small, spacious, spiritual, Christian communities in the Bay Area) for a lively conversation about all of this, including a look at the most commonly discussed spiritual approach to addressing such times.

Mentioned on this podcast:

Register your interest in the next Faith Part 2 course here.

Arbor communities in the Bay Area

The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu

The end goal of spiritual development for most great Christian contemplatives is some sort of union with God. But many people find that to feel pretty distant--maybe it's something we can only hope for in heaven. But a recent, major Christian contemplative named Bernadette Roberts offers a more direct pathway not only to union with God (and maybe beyond), but also to direct lifestyle benefits along the lines of what psychologists call "flow." She talks about it using the Eastern terminology of no-self. Dave Schmelzer has found it to be the most helpful spiritual thing he's learned in some time. He'll give a brief introduction to it here and he'll also mention a new, free, 8-week online course about these things that will be starting in February called "Faith Part 2."


Mentioned on this podcast:

"Faith Part 2," an upcoming, free online course about what good things might come next for people who perhaps have experienced the limits of their early faith instruction. You can get more information and register interest here.

The Experience of No-Self, by Bernadette Roberts

Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, by Jed McKenna

An episode of the Ringer podcast Plain English with Derek Thompson called “Why the Voice Inside Your Head Can Sound Like a Jerk” (Sept. 20, 2022)

Some people, feeling unsettled by the election, have wondered what the wisdom talked about on The Pocket Contemplative might offer us. Dave Schmelzer looks to Julian of Norwich, who lived during her own unsettling time (the Bubonic Plague), for some thoughts. In his introduction, he also talks about "Faith Part 2," a new 8-week online course about the how-to's of a faith that, learning from the greats, might help to move us past faith challenges into a richer life with God than perhaps we've yet been exposed to. 


Mentioned on this podcast:

To register interest in the 8-week online Faith Part 2 course, go to: thepocketcontemplative.com/faithpart2

Two popular translations of Julian of Norwich's Revelation of Divine Love:

Ellyn Sanna's All Shall Be Well: A Modern-Language Version of the Revelation of Julian of Norwich (Very readable, very faith-filled.)

Mirabai Starr's Julian of Norwich: The Showings: Uncovering the Face of the Feminine in Revelations of Divine Love (Probably the most popular recent translation and discussion of Julian, from a more interreligious perspective.)

 Hartmut Rosa is a German sociologist whom many Christians have been looking to as a guide to how our lives seem to be accelerating. Do we somehow need to opt out of this acceleration if we want a happy life, much less a life with God? Rosa says no, opting out isn’t possible. But he does have a contemplative answer: “resonance,” a kind of paying attention that can sit alongside much of what we talk about here. Vince Brackett, a Chicago pastor, and Rosa devotee, walks us through this fascinating view of a rich life in a busy world.


Mentioned on this podcast:

Hartmut Rosa’s book Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World

Brown Line Church in Chicago

Dave Schmelzer is in touch with many people who are, to a greater or lesser degree, deconstructing their earlier faith experience, a common process for midlife people of faith. HIstoric Christian spirituality tells us there's a unique second-half-of-life flowering of faith. Dave lets us in on a series of conversations he's been having about how we might explore that in our era. 

Mentioned on this podcast:

Short videos about The Critical Journey's stages of faith

Intriguing blog posts about "post-progressive" faith

Howard Thurman was the great behind-the-scenes spiritual leader of America’s civil rights movement. Martin Luther King was said to carry a copy of Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited with him for inspiration on each march. But Thurman starts by being among the great nature mystics in the Christian tradition. Why do you (like everyone) love nature so much? For Thurman, that’s part of how we create that strong inner self that so influenced King and others.


Mentioned on this podcast:

What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman, by Lerita Coleman Brown

I want to be happy. You want to be happy. But maybe our best pathway there comes by focusing instead on "living well.". MIT philosopher Kieran Setiya's book Life Is Hard helps Dave Schmelzer navigate those choices, with a particular look at how it applies when we feel like a failure or when we're hunting for meaning.

Mentioned on this podcast:

Kieran Setiya's book Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way (which, at the moment, is a mere $4.99 on Kindle)