The Pocket Contemplative
Episodes
123 episodes
The Mystic's Mystic (History Corner)
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, the German academic and mys...
Finding Happiness after Regret or Loss
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 fall out, if we get a terrib...
The Monk Who Invented Psychotherapy (History Corner)
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 of what came out of desert s...
Why Getting What You Want Won't Make You Happy
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 can be central in helping us c...
When Christianity Gets Tied to the State (History Corner)
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 now messed with the heads of...
On Spirituality and Your Health
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 determine whether we age with vigor...
Why Some Christians Distrust Mysticism (History Corner)
"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 orthodoxy made consequential choices...
Aging as a Spiritual Practice
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 touches on fascinating ideas fr...
Finding a Third Way in a Divided World
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 and how it might help all of u...
On Playfulness
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 look quite unpromising and over...
Let's talk about wanting things
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 complexities as they focus on things li...
Let's "Hallow" Our Day-to-Day Work
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 "co-creating a better world wi...
Holy Spirit Power! (For Contemplatives)
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 out the answer is not just "y...
How Friendships Can Drive Spiritual Growth
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 we talk about on The Pocket ...
Why Your Kids Don't Go to Church (Part 2)
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...
Why Your Kids Don't Go to Church (Part 1)
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. ...
Do's and Don'ts of Hearing God's Voice
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 proble...
Being Spiritual in an Unsafe World
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...
Union with God (and Maybe Beyond)
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 c...
Post-Election Thoughts from Julian of Norwich
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...
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Your Life is Speeding Up! Try “Resonance.”
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? Ros...
On Second-Half-of-Life Spiritual Growth
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-ha...
Why You Love Nature (with Howard Thurman)
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...
