Many of us have heard Rumi’s quotes, but how many of us are familiar with his tradition? 

Like many world religions, the mystical tradition within Islam is often a well-kept secret.

But Omid Safi is doing what he can to change that! 

Omid is a teacher in the Islamic tradition of Radical Love. He serves as a professor at Duke University specializing in Islamic spirituality and contemporary thought. A leading Muslim public intellectual, Omid is committed to the intersection of spirituality and social justice. His passion for teaching has been recognized through the ten times that he has been nominated for professor of the year awards!

Join Omid to learn:

• The 3 things missing from our understanding of “religion”
• The role sacred eroticism plays in the Path of Love
• The true meaning of Rumi’s field
• Why seeing God as both Lover and Beloved will turn your spirituality on its head
• The two wings needed for justice to soar–and why we need to speak out of “love as open as the sky”
• The moving story that reveals the heart of the Sufi tradition

Omid Safi has published extensively on the foundational sources of Islam and Sufism. His Memories of Muhammad is a biography of the Prophet Muhammad. His most recent book is Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition (published by Yale).  

Omid is also deeply committed to liberationist prophetic traditions in the legacy of Martin Luther King, Rabbi Heschel, and Malcolm X. He has been invited by the family of Dr. King to speak at Ebenezer Church on the relevance of Dr. King for today’s America, and has delivered the Martin Luther King keynote in the annual national MLK service.

Omid often appears as an expert on Islam in the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, BBC, CNN and other outlets. He has a podcast called “Sufi Heart” at Be Here Now. His Illuminated Tours have taken more than a 1,000 friends from over twenty countries to Turkey and Morocco since 2002, and he is now offering Illuminated Courses for online offerings on spiritual traditions open to seekers of all backgrounds.

 As we settle into contemplative silence, we come face to face with Mystery. Liminality. The frailty of our own existence. 

What does it mean to face that uncertainty with courage–and, perhaps, a dash of mischief?

Join us for a conversation exploring the heights and depths of reality with the one and only Ilia Delio. Ilia is a scientist, theologian, and Franciscan sister who focuses on ways that evolution, quantum physics, and neuroscience intersect with theology.

Along with co-hosts Kelly Deutsch and Amy Marie, you will learn:

• How the Church has diverted us from “withinness” - and how mysticism offers a solution
• Why “relationality” is the key to our flourishing
• The 3 things we need on our journey from head to heart to wholeness
• Why religion must take science seriously if it’s going to continue to exist
• The deep insight Jesus offers us when he talks about partying and feasting!
• The secret to healing trauma, hidden in the Gospel miracle stories
• What gives Ilia hope

And, gain a sneak peek into Ilia’s backstory: from pharmacology school to the Carmelites, her prankster years in the Franciscan novitiate, driving a beat up car into the Bronx to study theology, to her years at a Georgetown thinktank where she got to rifle through the personal papers of Tielhard de Chardin.

This is one session you won’t want to miss!

Ilia Delio is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC and American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence and the import of these for theology.

She has a great love for the work of Teilhard de Chardin, and the way the Franciscan charism informs eco-spirituality today.

Ilia currently holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University, and is the author of seventeen books including Care for Creation (coauthored with Keith Warner and Pamela Woods) which won two Catholic Press Book Awards in 2009, first place for social concerns and second place in spirituality. Her book The Emergent Christ won a third place Catholic Press Book Award in 2011 for the area of Science and Religion. Her recent books include The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love, which received the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award and a third place Catholic Press Association Award for Faith and Science.

Visit her center's website at christogenesis.org.

Carmelites are the deep divers of the interior life. When you’re ready to go real deep, or when your longings for divine intimacy are becoming painfully strong–Carmel is where you want to go.

As you may know, two of the best known Christian mystics were Carmelites–namely, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Their writings have inspired millions of other contemplatives and mystics over the centuries, and guide us in those interior spaces where the road map ends.

In this session, the Carmelite friar Matthew Blake will guide us through those wild interior spaces. These are the places where language ends and unknowing begins! 

Join us to learn:

• The real goal of the contemplative life
• How the spaciousness of Carmelite spirituality helps us become more fully ourselves
• How to pursue divine union–and 3 things to keep in mind
• The one major obstacle you’ll face (and how to overcome it)
• The secret to incorporating silence and solitude into your busy life
• The role of longing in the path to union
• The real meaning of the dark night–and why John says it’s always good news

For anyone with longings for union–this is one session you won’t want to miss.

Father Matthew Blake has been a member of the Carmelite Order since 1981. Born in Ireland, he has worked in the UK since 1989. A popular retreat director, spiritual director, and speaker, Matthew is passionate about Carmelite Spirituality and making its treasures better known.

What does it mean to be a contemplative?

Many of us reach this path through crisis or curiosity, but the one thing we all have in common is a longing for depth. For something so much more.

How do we prepare for this path? How did we lose it in the first place? And why is it crucial to our survival?

Join Benedictine monk Laurence Freeman to learn:

• The critical stage we each must go through to find wisdom
• How meditation helps us embrace the world as it is
• 3 steps to recovering contemplative consciousness in ourselves
• A surprising definition of prayer that will upend everything you thought you knew
• The 3 effects of prayer according to Origen
• How to read Jesus’s mystical teachings in the Gospels

–and so much more!

Of Irish and English parentage, Laurence Freeman was educated by the Benedictines and studied English Literature atOxford University. Before entering monastic life, he worked with the United Nations in New York, in Banking and Journalism. He is Director of The World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) an inclusive contemplative community. He is a Benedictine monk of the Congregation of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Italy.

Laurence now resides at Bonnevaux, the WCCM international home in France, and a center for peace where meditation is practiced and taught as a way to personal and social transformation.  Bonnevaux draws on a rich tradition of contemplative wisdom which our times demand.

Father Laurence is a prolific author. His books including: Light Within, The Selfless Self, Your Daily Practice, Jesus: The Teacher Within, First Sight: The Experience of Faith, Web of Silence, and Good Work: Meditation for Personal and Organizational Transformation.

He has collaborated with the Dalai Lama on many dialogues and the groundbreaking book The Good Heart.  In addition to his work for the contemplative renewal of Christianity he leads dialogues and peace initiatives, seeing meditation as opening the common ground of all humanity. He was awarded the Order of Canada in recognition of his work for interfaith dialogue and the promotion of world peace. His Daily Wisdom, letter and other regular teachings online and his retreats and conferences are sources of inspiration for many worldwide.