Program Description: Have you ever imagined Jesus laughing? Tessa Bielecki has. She also reminds us that he was the one who made sure there was plenty of wine at that wedding party we've heard so much about. A lifelong Christian monastic who now lives in a cabin in the desert, she loves to share her vision of the wildness in Jesus, God, and spirituality in general, and will inspire you to bring a fresh, playful, spacious approach to your relationship to the divine. She points out that while modern Christianity has grown terribly dull, the truth is that, "God is like a tsunami. We just never know what we're going to experience. We've turned Christianity into a dull, dry system, and it's as though we feel we have God in our pocket, sort of at our beck and call, and we can kind of pull him out as our little pet. God isn't like that. God is wild. God is definitely untamed." With her own brand of joyful reverence Ms. Bielecki offers practical suggestions that will help you break out of the everydayness of your spiritual practice, bring laughter and play into your relationship with the sacred, and rediscover the wildness in your own life. (Hosted by Justine Willis Toms)
Tessa Bielecki is a former Carmelite monastic nun and abbess. She studied languages and international relations at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., then lived for almost forty years in a monastery. She now lives as a lay hermit in the Colorado desert, where she co-created the Desert Foundation, dedicated to disseminating the wisdom of the world's desert cultures to foster peace and reconciliation. She is the author of Teresa of Avila: Mystical Writings (Crossroad 1993) and Holy Daring: An Outrageous Gift to Modern Spirituality from Saint Teresa, the Grand Wild Woman of Avila (Element Books 1994), and creator of the CD set, Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics (Sounds True 2006). To learn more about the work of Tessa Bielecki go to www.desertfound.org
Topics explored in this dialogue:
How Christianity has been "frisked, spayed, and tamed"
Why having a regular daily practice can get you into trouble
Why God is like the lion in Chronicles of Narnia
How you can tell if you're a natural mystic
How you can make play a part of your spiritual practice
