Soul Journey Reading List

Some of you have been wondering what I've been reading as part of my preparation for our Soul Journey series. So this week, instead of a post with questions for you, I will simply source you with books I've read over the past six weeks by topic. Enjoy!

I talked Sunday about doing some shadow work. Connie Zweig and Richard Rohr have been instrumental in in challenging me in this area. Richard Rohr's classic work on the topic is Everything Belongs and Connie Zweig weighs in with The Holy Longing: Spiritual Yearning and Its Shadow Side.

I'm a huge fan of the poet Luci Shaw. I had the honor of spending several days with her in the fall of 2007. I've nearly worn out my signed copy of her book, The Crime of Living Cautiously: Hearing God's Call to Adventure. This work is a work of prose laced with her poetry. Once you experience her work, you'll be a fan as well.

For more information on the concept of Thin Places, check out Tracy Balzer's book, Thin Places: An Evangelical Journey into Celtic Christianity. Tracy is the Director of Christian Formation at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Her piece is an introduction to the great spiritual legacy of the early Celts including practical ways for us to apply ancient spiritual disciplines to our lives. If you add Macrina Wiederkehr's Seven Sacred Spaces: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day to Thin Places, you have a great one-two punch for your personal devotions.

Finally, for more information on my recent references to Quantum Physics and its potential for spiritual formation, check out The G.O.D. Experiments: How Science is Discovering God in Everything Including Us by Gary E. Schwartz. Consider pairing it with Alber-Laszlo Barabasi's Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science and Everyday Life for a fuller understanding.

Soul Meandering

I introduced the concept of soul meandering during our Gathering Sunday. I will wager that most of your soul journeys resemble the meandering stream I described than the ordered, sequential models that dominate Church spiritual formation models. I'm interested to hear your stories. Has your journey been more ordered or more of a meander? Do you agree or disagree with my assertion that spiritual formation happens as life happens on a need to grow, need to know basis? What makes vital information stick for you? An inquiring mind wants to know!

Think. Feel. Do.

We've been focused for the past several weeks on important role that intellect, emotion and will play in authentic spirituality. At this point many of us are looking for the step-by-step process that will integrate each of these into our Soul Journey. Each dimension of our personality can lead at appropriate times on our journey, but none should lead as a practice. What dimension tends to lead you on your journey? Why? Do you have a dimension that you tend to let atrophy? Can you determine why?