The Pocket Contemplative

<p>In this longer episode, Dave Schmelzer reviews fascinating research about how prayer--and faith--can work so powerfully. He reviews a new book by Nir Eyal which explores the crucial role of injecting hope into our...

<p>Generations of people exploring contemplative spirituality, both in the Christian tradition (Thomas Merton) and outside of it (Thich Nhat Hanh) have gone back again and again to one brilliant and confounding teacher...

<p>We talk about happiness every now and again, but how can we find it if we realize the things we'd been pinning our happiness on, our biggest dreams, just aren't going to happen? Or even if the bottom really seems to...

<p>The connection between contemplative practice and psychotherapy is often noted, but how that came to be is a fascinating story. Dave Schmelzer offers a look at fourth century monk Evagrius of Pontus as a key example...

<p>Cutting to the chase, getting what we want won't make us happy because of what the researchers call "hedonic adaptation." The good news is that these same researchers tell us these desires for our lives absolutely...

<p>In another episode of Dave's "history corner," he looks at the cataclysm that happened when the emperor made Christianity the state's religion in 325. Where Christians had been poor, persecuted and few in number, it...

<p>Contemplative practice has a remarkable connection to our physical health, among its many benefits. Dave Schmelzer will review how it connects with lengthening our telomeres, the caps on our chromosomes which...

<p>"I dunno, that seems kind of out there to me" is a sentiment that has shadowed Christian conversations from the start. Dave Schmelzer takes us on a journey to the second century when early attempts to define...

<p>After relaying some brief advice from Dick Van Dyke about turning 100, Dave Schmelzer chats about some wisdom from the Buddhist therapist Lewis Richmond about what he's learned by working with aging clients. Dave...

<p>Mark Charbonneau and his friends at The Vine church in Austin, Texas are charting a unique way forward in our cultural and religious divisions. Dave Schmelzer talks with him about what their “third way” looks like...

<p>Some great thinkers like GK Chesterton and Meister Eckhart pitch that right at the heart of God's reality is play and that the more we can tap into this bone-deep playfulness, even in the middle of realities that...

<p>One of the charms of Christian faith is that so many scriptures encourage us to ask God for things we want. But as we age we realize it must be more complicated than that--and the great contemplatives add...

<p>One unexpected outcome of the Christian contemplative life is that, per the Benedictines, we'll discover that the stuff we need to do everyday has the possibility of moving from "that stuff we have to get done" to...

<p>Dave Schmelzer used to lead a church in which looking to experience power that we're told comes from the Holy Spirit was a big deal. Does that view of the spiritual life translate to a contemplative world? It turns...

<p>Dave Schmelzer and Curtis Gruenler (an English professor and medievalist) have been friends since college and they talk about the ins and outs of how friendships themselves can empower the kind of growth in God that...