Mystery – God – and with Sophianic Wisdom. The mystics teach us to discover the Divine in the core of all things, and also to find this sacredness within our own inner depths. They situate humanity not only in the non dual place between union and communion, but within the inner life of the Godhead itself. Here, in union with Christ, we each become the unique lens through which the divine Beloved – both God and Sophia, Father and Mother – know and celebrate themselves with our awe, wonder and desire. In the process, we discover that our longing for love is Love’s longing for us. Our suffering is transformed by being taken up into our Source, enabling us to unite our sufferings to the evolution of the world, thereby empowering us to experience freedom and creativity in our quest to heal the earth.
The presentation focused on the lessons and insights that Stephen Hatch has gleaned through forty years of living as a “worldly monk” with a family, and through the insights of such mystics of Origen of Alexandria, William of St. Thierry, Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, George Fox, Howard Thurman, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Thomas Merton, Madam Jeanne Guyon, Sebastian Franck, Hadewijch, John Muir, Cynthia Bourgeault and Thomas Keating.
Stephen Hatch trained with Father Thomas Keating in the 1980s and has lived acontemplative life ever since. His life work is discovering and practicing the connection between Nature and contemplation. Stephen teaches two Christian Mysticism courses at Naropa University and is the author of “The Contemplative John Muir: Spiritual Quotations from the Great American Naturalist” (2012), and “Wilderness Mysticism: A Contemplative Christian Tradition” (2018). He was interviewed in the recent film: “The Unruly Mystic: John Muir"”; (2019). Stephen lives in Fort Collins and hikes, camps and backpacks whenever he can.
