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Our hunger for wisdom

Posted on Jan 9, 2008 15:24pm CST.
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Bruno Barnhart
Our hunger for wisdom
Bruno Barnhart is a Camaldolese monk of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, Calif. He is the author of The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center (Paulist, 1993) and Second Simplicity: The Inner Shape of Christianity (Paulist 1999), and co-editor of Purity of Heart and Contemplation: A Monastic Dialogue Between Christian and Asian Traditions (Continuum, 2001). His latest book is The Future of Wisdom: Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity (Continuum, 2007).

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Episode 1 | Episode 2
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Episode 1: Sapiential hunger, hunger for wisdom (26 min.)
"A lot of people when they write about mysticism, they look at that experience as the end, the goal of the spiritual life," Fr. Barnhart tells Tom Fox. "But I think it is more like the beginning. You go from there. Something is put into you which takes the rest of your life to work it out, to express it, to incarnate it, to make it real in the world."

Episode 2: The paradox of wisdom (31 min.)
Look at First Corinthians, verse 1, Fr. Barnhart tells Tom Fox. "Usually you think of wisdom as a kind of fattening, by which we get larger and larger in our minds and we can bring more and more things together into a synthetic vision. But Paul seems to be talking about the opposite. He’s talking about falling into a black hole. That’s the paradox of Christian wisdom. All the wisdom disappears at a certain point, because we live in a world and an economy of faith. Wisdom seems to go on the drain on you. But it recovers when you need it. It is the wisdom of the cross."

The Future of Wisdom
About the Book
A review in Library Journal called Barnhart’s The Future of Wisdom "a must for most collections." It said, Barnhart’s "new book, a substantial contribution toward the renewal of Christian spirituality, is rather more controversial than it might first appear, given Barnhart's good Catholic background. Barnhart seeks and desires no less than a wholehearted rediscovery and reinvigoration of the mystical wisdom tradition that was once a powerful component of Christian spirituality, both Western and Eastern."

The Second Coming
       By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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judith simon Our local

Submitted by judyjane on March 17, 2008 - 4:15pm.

judith simon

Our local "Forever Learning Institute" is offering St. John of the Cross and the Dark Night of the Soul." I am very interested at this time. In addition, my husband was recently diagnosed with a cancer of the blood, Waldenstrom's. The black hole is where we are going. Prayers, please.

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How distressing to hear

Submitted by As We Forgive on March 18, 2008 - 6:30pm.

How distressing to hear about your husband. Although we are not physically there with you, I pray that you find comfort in knowing that others care and pray for you BOTH.
... the greatest of these ...

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judith s ~ Yes

Submitted by Dennis on March 18, 2008 - 4:15am.

judith s ~ Yes

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Thank you for this

Submitted by Larry Moricca on February 11, 2008 - 9:03pm.

Thank you for this interview. It helped me in understanding Father Barnhart's book on wisdom a bit better. I find it significant and filled with love.

Larry

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Thanks for these great

Submitted by Quintana on January 14, 2008 - 3:54pm.

Thanks for these great interviews of Fr. Bruno Barnhart, OSB Cam. I have listened to Fr. Bruno before. He is an extraordinary teacher, prophet and mystic. He never fails to encourage and give those who hear him great wisdom.

Michael

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