Being Wise, Being Foolish

I wonder if you, like me, recognize the crucial importance of wisdom at this point in your life and in our life together on earth. Not having been alive for either of the world’s two great wars, I get a small sense of what it might have been like in the years just before these world wars as I watch things spiralling out of control in Israel’s current war with Hamas.

WisdomDr. David G. BennerDecember 29, 2023 Comment

Mystery, Paradox, and Polar Opposites

I first fell in love with the mystics as an undergraduate when a friend gave me Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton introduced me to the essential place of mystery in any engagement with the Transcendent One.

Spirituality, TransformationDr. David G. BennerJune 24, 2023Comment

Spiritual Identity Disorders

One of the most important questions you can ever address is, “Who am I?” You might think of identity as an adolescent issue. But, while adolescence might have been the last time you paid any serious attention to your identity, it has continued to evolve since then and where it has settled has crucial implications for both your psychological and spiritual wellbeing.

Spirituality, Psychology, TransformationDr. David G. BennerNovember 17, 2022 Comment

Wholeness and Brokenness: A Conversation

Several years ago I had a conversation with a friend about wholeness, brokenness, and healing. Dr. Jackie Stinton is a psychologist and spiritual director who has thought a lot about these issues, and our interaction helped me clarify my own thoughts about them. Join us as we talk about these things, and make space for your own inner dialogue that arises in response to our conversation.

SpiritualityDr. David G. BennerSeptember 5, 2022 Comments

Healthy and Toxic Spirituality

Recently it has become fashionable to paint religion and spirituality with quite different brushes – religion often being represented as dark and oppressive while spirituality is viewed as either benign or potentially life-enhancing. As usual, reality is more complex.

SpiritualityDr. David G. BennerJuly 4, 2022 Comments

The Body, Prayer, and Julian of Norwich

Christians are often ambivalent about their bodies. This is odd because of the central place of the incarnation in Christian theology. Why would God take on our humanity by becoming flesh if human flesh is such a bad thing?

Spirituality, TransformationDr. David G. BennerMay 2, 2022Comment

The Illusion of Separateness

I wonder if you remember the story of the first astronauts who went into space to see the stars but were most deeply impacted by seeing the earth. It was, however, what they didn’t see that was even more surprising to them. No matter how hard they looked, they were unable to see national, ethnic, racial, socio-economic, or religious boundaries.…

Wisdom, Spirituality, Awakening, TransformationDr. David G. BennerJanuary 25, 2022Comment

Natural Wisdom

When I reflect on the ease with which folly comes to all of us, and how alien wisdom seems to be to our ways of collective living, I think of how natural wisdom is to the non-human elements of creation. In 2017 I was given the opportunity to spend three weeks on an expedition ship exploring the coastal regions of Antarctica…

WisdomDr. David G. BennerNovember 1, 2021Comment

Trauma and Awakening

It may seem strange to write about trauma and awakening in the same sentence, since one of the first things our bodies do in response to trauma is shut down. But, trauma does not just shut us down. It also offers unique opportunities for awakening…

Spirituality, Interspiritual, TransformationDr. David G. BennerOctober 1, 2021 Comment

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