“We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.”

- The Book of Common Prayer

Dear Seekers and Seers,

Over the last seven years, I’ve been leading people through some of the great contemplative texts of Wisdom and Interspiritual Mysticism - through the flume of spiritual practice. What an absolute gift to join others at the banquet at the center of the world.

These include: Bruno Barnhart, Jakob Boehme, Ladislaus Boros, Cynthia Bourgeault, Beatrice Bruteau, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Olivier Clement, Ilia Delio, Pseudo-Dionysius, Julia Gatta, The Wisdom Gospels, George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, Kabir Helminski, Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, Maurice Nicoll, St. Benedict of Nursia, Raimon Panikkar, The Philokalia, Jeanne de Salzmann, The Cloud of Unknowing, and many others.

What began instinctually as an internal and external charge, became a prayer of the heart. And prayers of the heart happen, organically, in real time. While I could sense this unfolding as one could sense a cup of tea in the hand, I had no agenda or interest in establishing a contemplative school. I simply had a yearning to be and to share. So I just rolled out of bed in the morning and said, “Reporting for duty!” I even gave a salute.

Never knowing what each day brings, I chose to make my effort my aim.

“What is this awesome mystery that is taking place within me? I can find no words to express it […] Just as if you lit a flame from a flame, it is the whole flame you receive.”

- St. Symeon the New Theologian

Little did I know when my wife drew this on our family chalkboard in the spring of 2018 that it would be the embers on fire but not consumed.

Reporting for duty turns out to be a wild exercise in the fire of the Presence of “I AM.”

Recently, we just brought full circle a three-year Gospel of Thomas group where we went through the 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. That group has now morphed into The Reality of Being circle, adding brilliant new seers I’ve never met in the flesh but know in energy. We’re choosing to face ourselves in the strictest of mirrors together to see what’s real and what is just an imitation of ourselves.

“Yeshua answered them: When you make the two into One, when you make the inner like the outer and the higher like the low; when you make male and female into a single One, so that the male is not male and the female is not female; when you have eyes in your eyes, a hand in your hand, a foot in your foot, and an icon in your icon, then you will enter into the Kingdom.”

Or as The Gospel According to Luke puts it:

“An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, and said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’”

It is precisely this interabiding we have been in over the last several years. And I thank you for the reciprocity in the great gift of this exchange of love.

Years ago, people asked me if they could give to my Wisdom offerings a tax-deductible donation, an offering for simply pulling God out of the sky and into the proper places of our hearts. My answer then was, no.

I’m now pleased to announce that I am my own 501(c)(3) that can receive your tax-deductible donations for the oblations I offer and receive in group work.

Thanks for the prompt. I listened to it, as St. Benedict wrote, with the ear of my heart.

BENJAMIN THOMAS is an Episcopal Priest and Theologian-in-Residence at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton, FL, a Benedictine Oblate, a Wisdom Teacher and Founder of the Wisdom School: Seeing with the Eye of the Heart focused on the Christian contemplative path and interspiritual mysticism, and a published writer and poet. He also serves on the board of Wisdom Waypoints. You can join his engagement here.