The Contemplative Heart [Paperback]

James Finley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1999

James Finley recognizes the depth and range of today's spiritual yearning and refuses to settle for anything but its most profound possibilities. He opens our everyday living to the contemplative traditions, practices, and teaching that have been traditionally the preserve of the monk, and he does so without diluting them. The Contemplative Heart, enables readers to realize that wherever we live, whatever we do, the richest possibilities of a contemplative life are within our reach-that they are in fact what we have been searching for all along.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

It is possible to live a contemplative life in today's world.

James Finley recognizes the depth and range of today's spiritual yearning and refuses to settle for anything but its most profound possibilities.

He opens our everyday living to the contemplative traditions, practices, and teaching that have been traditionally the preserve of the monk, and he does so without diluting them.

He makes us realize that wherever we live, whatever we do, the richest possibilities of a contemplative life are within our reach-that they are in fact what we have been searching for all along.

He shows us how to:
develop a contemplative way of life
discover our contemplative practices
find our contemplative community and enter it
find our contemplative teaching and follow it.

The Contemplative Heart is a deeply satisfying contemplative book about contemplation.

About the Author

James Finley was born in Akron, Ohio on May 30, 1943. After graduating in 1961 from Hoban High School, a Catholic school run by the Holy Cross Brothers, he entered the cloistered Trappist monastery of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Ky. where he studied under Thomas Merton.

"I sat at Thomas Merton's feet in the classical sense," Finley says. "I saw him as a man of God whose guidance I could trust and follow in committing myself to a life of contemplative self transformation."

Before making his final vows to become a Trappist monk, Finley left the monastery in January 1967 and began to work toward a bachelors in English Literature from the University of Akron and a masters in education from Saint John College in Cleveland. Finley also taught high school religion and wrote religion textbooks.

In the early 1980s, Finley accepted a full-time doctoral scholarship in clinical psychology from the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He focused his studies on integrating sound clinical practice with the contemplative dimensions of healing.

Today, Finley and his wife, Maureen Fox, are psychotherapists in private practice in Santa Monica, Calif. Finley also conducts "silent retreats" throughout the United States and Canada where he helps participants draw from both Christian and Buddhist sources to identify the fundamentals of contemplative living. The author of several books including Merton's Palace of Nowhere and The Awakening Call, Finley has two grown daughters from a previous marriage and three grandchildren.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Sorin Books (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 189373210X
• ISBN-13: 978-1893732100
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Easy to Read, But Worth the Effort, May 2, 2000

By 

George E. Shultz (Pasadena, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Contemplative Heart (Paperback)

If you've never read James Finley before, you might think his recent book, "The Contemplative Heart," is just what the doctor ordered for your desire to learn more about the contemplative aspects of the spiritual journey. Well, yes...and no. You will definitely learn more about contemplation, contemplative prayer, and living a contemplative life. But be forewarned. This is not an "easy read." It's a book you'll need/want to read and reread...which is what I found myself doing. Practically sentence by sentence. The first time I met James Finley was at one of his silent retreats at the Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino, California. He's indeed a masterful retreat master. Profound yet humorous; complex and surprisingly poetic. The first Finley retreat I attended had the advertised title of "The Spirituality of Thomas Merton." And, although Finley decided to change the title at the first session to "Meditation in Daily Life," the conferences nevertheless seemed to be based on his 1978 book "Merton's Palace of Nowhere" -- a relatively "easy" read. Even his chapter on "The Realization of the True Self" was not terribly difficult to comprehend. Finley's clear and concise writing in "Merton's Palace of Nowhere" stands out sharply against many of his sentences in "The Contemplative Heart." The reader, therefore, must spend a little more time with this latest Finley book. Readers may find in "Heart" that the style of writing is akin to that found in the poetry of Thomas Merton and the prose of St. John of the Cross -- two authors whose books demand care and attention from their readers. In Finley's "Palace," the relatively complex is expressed comprehensibly; for example: "The realization of the true self does not fall into our lap like ripe fruit. It is true that in God we live without effort, but it is also true that it calls for a divestiture of the self to live without effort." On the other hand, in Finley's "Heart," in Part Two's chapter on Meditation, we read, "Contemplative gazing is the visual expression of the self-transforming journey in which we are set free from the twofold ignorance of seeing things as opaque to God as we simultaneously see God to be dualistically other than the concrete immediacy of things." Unfortunately, the clarity of the "Heart's" Table of Contents is not mirrored in most of its following pages. Part One's A Contemplative Vision of Life in the Contents is followed by Part Two: Find Your Contemplative Practice and Practice It, Part Three: Find Your Contemplative Community and Enter It, and Part Four: Find Your Contemplative Teaching and Follow It. However, I can't say that Finley doesn't warn us about the complex nature of this book. In his A Note to the Reader, Finley mentions, "These writings give primacy, not to conceptual thought, but to intuitions, intimations, and experiences of the spiritual path of contemplative self-transformation." Many of us must read that sentence a few times before we might translate it for ourselves into something like "This book is based on my (Finley's) attempt to describe the kinds of spiritual experiences that can change our lives as we travel on the contemplative path." He goes on to say, "I suggest, then, that you read these reflections slowly, much as you would listen to music." Here, again, a minor revision is needed for the sake of clarity. (Who listens to music slowly?) A careful editor would have urged Finley to say, "I suggest, then, that you read these reflections with care and attention, much as you might listen to your favorite music." All of these seemingly disparaging comments about aspects of Finley's latest book are not intended to negate my earlier comment that it is indeed a book worth reading...and rereading. And though Finley's writing here is particularly intricate and weighty, albeit at times poetic, he is at other, fewer, times concise and clear and to the point. For example: "We seek to live a more contemplative way of life, so that we will not have to wait until we are dying to learn how to live." Actually, this book requires study more than it does rereading, and is not for the "beginner," or the curious. This is a book for those who are serious about their spiritual life. And those who are committed to the contemplative path on their spiritual journey can't help but profit from a careful, slow, attentive reading of "The Contemplative Heart."

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A journey into grace., July 5, 2000

By 

Sophie Larocca (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Contemplative Heart (Paperback)

The Contemplative Heart, from the first page on, is a book that really had an impact on me. Jim Finley communicates gently and without arrogance, speaking to the heart through his own observations, experiences and journey. His writes about how we can know God and experience God through anything and everything...that all of life is speaking to us...that we can experience a deep sense of grace and peace even through the mundane, through pain, through silence, through all of the things that we encounter in our daily lives. I especially was touched by his emphasis on "the divinity of what just is." I've been raised all my life with the concept of grace, but this book expressed grace in a way i never have heard before. It has helped renew my belief that God's heart is full of grace, that all of life is speaking about this grace.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding tranquility and spirituality within a secular life., June 4, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Contemplative Heart (Paperback)

The Contemplative Heart shows us how to find breathing room in our cluttered daily lives. For five years James Finley lived at the cloistered Trappist monastery where he studied with Thomas Merton. Finley's meditations relate directly to our everyday experience of the hectic, modern world and the necessity to remain grounded in the meaning and value of our lives beyond what we produce, consume, and achieve. Finley offers guidelines for meditative practices that promote self-reflection, and shows how to include contemplative influences in our lives, while rooting out those that hinder the process. The Contemplative Heart is highly recommended reading for anyone needing to find tranquility in the midst of confusion, silence in the noise of the world, and personal spirituality within the framework of a secular life.