Peter Traben Haas on Prayer as a Practice of Centering, Abiding, & Radiating

Summary

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Contemplify Podcast Episode Summary

Episode: Peter Traben Haas on Prayer as a Practice of Centering, Abiding, & Radiating

Host: Paul Swanson
Guest: Rev. Dr. Peter Traben Haas
Date: December 18, 2024

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Episode Overview

In this thoughtful and deeply personal episode, Paul Swanson welcomes Rev. Dr. Peter Traben Haas, author, pastor, and contemplative, to discuss prayer as a practice of centering, abiding, and radiating. Their conversation weaves through Peter’s unfolding spiritual journey, the profound impact of his recent move to Telluride, his evolving relationship with esoteric and biblical Christianity, the meaning of Advent, the significance of place and nature, and the creative and intimate power of written prayer. They also reflect on vulnerability, humility, and the universal capacity for contemplation—offering practical wisdom for listeners seeking to deepen their own contemplative practice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Living in Telluride: Place and the Soul

[02:05 - 08:59]

• Peter describes his new home in Telluride, Colorado, as “heaven on earth,” emphasizing how its natural beauty sustains and inspires him.
  • Quote: “I feel like my soul is looking at my soul.” — Peter Traben Haas [02:41]
• Contrasts his previous life of long commutes with the slowness and ease of walking everywhere, which fosters a deeper spiritual pace.
• Shares reflections on mountains and oceans as spiritual metaphors, and mourns the closure of St. Benedict’s Monastery, expressing his hope for Telluride to become a gathering place for contemplatives.
  • Quote: “The mountains are like the ocean in a certain sense. They’re vertical waves. The ocean’s… this horizontal vastness, and the mountains are vertical vastness.” [06:35]
• Observes how COVID shifted demographics, bringing new life and young families to his church community.

2. Spiritual Journey and Integration

[09:28 - 22:14]

• Peter traces a major transition since his last Contemplify appearance in 2018.
  • Details his period as pastor at the Church of Conscious Harmony (CCH) in Austin, blending contemplative Christianity with Gurdjieff’s “Work” teachings.
• Describes a powerful, unexpected inner rebuke during a seminary retreat, questioning his integration of esoteric traditions with Christianity.
  • Quote: “I received like a gut punch... an inner rebuke… Who do you think you are eviscerating Christianity in the name of contemplative process?” [12:28]
• Ultimately chooses to return to a more biblical/Christ-centered spirituality, viewing previous attempts at integrating universalist or esoteric approaches as “ultimately a dead end.”
  • Quote: “People are embarrassed by Jesus so that we’ve retreated to this universal Christ. But I’m telling people, it’s a dead end. Ultimately, it’s a dead end.” [17:47]
• Emphasizes the need for integrating biblical foundations with contemplative experience moving forward, and feels renewed energy and joy.

3. Abiding, Centering, Radiating: A Biblical Model for Contemplation

[22:14 - 26:45]

• Paul and Peter discuss how everyone holds contemplative potential, citing hunters sitting for hours in deer stands as an example.
  • Quote: “Everyone is a contemplative in my book, they just may not know it.” [23:33]
• Peter rejects elitism in contemplative circles and moves toward a threefold biblical model:
  • Abiding: Being with Christ.
  • Centering: Anchoring one’s life in that relationship.
  • Radiating: Letting transformation flow outward into the world.

4. The Significance and Practice of Advent

[26:45 - 33:35]

• Peter unpacks the cosmological and existential meaning of Advent, especially its resonance in the northern hemisphere before electricity.
• He urges listeners to experience the season by sitting in stillness and watching the changing light at dusk, symbolizing our dependency on divine and physical light.
  • Quote: “If the sun didn’t come back, we’d be dead. Life as we know it would be dead… Solstice at wintertime is this total moment of recognizing our contingency upon light—not just physical light, but spiritual light.” [29:50]
• Recommends a practical Advent exercise: watch the changing light for two hours at dusk once a week during the four weeks of Advent.

5. Nature, Vulnerability, and Contemplative Prayer

[36:25 - 44:47]

• Peter discusses how nature and its vulnerability shape his prayers and life awareness:
  • Finds solace, renewal, and a sense of the sacred in nature.
  • Reflects on humanity's increasing recognition of environmental vulnerability in the age of instant global communication.
  • Acknowledges his own growth in respect for indigenous traditions and the humility required to live in coherence with the earth.
  • Quote: “The native traditions really show me how to live in harmony and coherence with nature. And it’s very humbling for me and probably most Westerners.” [43:44]

6. The Power of Written Prayer & Approaches to Practice

[38:02 - 54:54]

• Peter describes the origins of his Centering Prayers books as an outgrowth of his personal morning prayers—often sparked by scripture, nature, and silence—and shares how the creativity of written prayer emerges from deep abiding.
• Both Paul and Peter note a shift from exclusive reliance on spontaneous prayer to an appreciation for the depth, perspective, and community found in written prayers.
• Peter observes how prayer reveals theology, personality, and spiritual maturity, arguing that both written and spontaneous forms have a place.
  • Quote: “Prayer reveals people’s theology and personality more than if they were drunk.” [47:57]
  • Quote: “I don’t feel like—I’m not that smart, but I feel like it’s very… fruitful, like the Spirit was working… it's what abiding does. It makes people fruitful in every season of their life.” [41:46]
• Encourages listeners to allow vulnerability, honest devotion, and even foolishness in prayer, referencing the “prayer of the heart” in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

7. Emerging Projects and New Invitations

[57:44 - 61:18]

• Peter describes the launch of his new program, “A Year in the School of Jesus” (in-person and online), which explores spiritual theology and the teachings of Jesus for today.
  • “Let’s gather together... and talk about these ideas. Building a spiritual theology from the teachings of Jesus. What would the teachings of Jesus mean today if he were here?” [58:44]
• He is also beginning work on a spiritual autobiography, mining his journals to reflect on how biography is theological for him.
• Expresses excitement about being open to serving wherever his contemplative leadership is needed.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“I feel like my soul is looking at my soul.”
— Peter Traben Haas, describing Telluride [02:41]

“Who do you think you are eviscerating Christianity in the name of contemplative process?”
— Peter Traben Haas, on his inner rebuke [12:36]

“People are embarrassed by Jesus so that we’ve retreated to this universal Christ. But I’m telling people, it’s a dead end.”
— Peter Traben Haas [17:47]

“Everyone is a contemplative in my book, they just may not know it.”
— Peter Traben Haas [23:33]

“Solstice at wintertime is this total moment of recognizing our contingency upon light — not just physical light, but spiritual light.”
— Peter Traben Haas [29:50]

“Prayer reveals people’s theology and personality more than if they were drunk.”
— Peter Traben Haas [47:57]

“Being known, being loved, letting someone else in—if there is a destination, well, it’s certainly a rest stop along our journey… in the spiritual journey, that’s the Presence.”
— Peter Traben Haas [52:53]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:05 – Introduction and guest welcome
• 02:05 – Peter’s move to Telluride, the spiritual quality of place
• 09:59 – What’s become clearer: Peter’s shift from esotericism to biblical integration
• 17:47 – Reflections on esotericism, the “universal Christ,” and returning to Jesus
• 22:14 – Abiding, Centering, Radiating: A biblical contemplative framework
• 26:45 – The spiritual and liturgical wisdom of Advent
• 38:02 – The genesis and practice of Centering Prayers
• 44:47 – Nature, vulnerability, and spiritual humility
• 47:57 – The revelatory nature of personal and written prayer
• 57:44 – New projects: “A Year in the School of Jesus” and spiritual autobiography
• 62:15 – Closing playful exchange: pairing the episode with champagne or hot chocolate

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Tone and Style

The conversation is warm, honest, reflective, and at times poetic. Both speakers treat vulnerability and change as spiritual gifts, inviting listeners not just to think but also to feel alongside them and experiment with prayer, nature, and seasonal practices in their own spiritual lives.

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For more information:

• Peter’s church and contemplative programs: christchurchtelluride.com
• New program: A Year in the School of Jesus
• Show notes and resources: contemplify.com

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Transcript

[Paul Swanson]

Welcome to Contemplify where we seek to kindle the examined life for contemplatives in the world. I'm your host, Paul Swanson. Today I'm in conversation with Peter trauben Haas. The Reverend Dr. Peter Traben Haas rises each morning watching the light shade from dark to dawn and the still silence birth words. His aim as a pastor and writer is to deepen spiritual fecundity by exploring biblical wisdom verse by verse. He is an ordained teaching pastor at the Presbyterian Church USA and earned a BA From Moody Bible, an M. Div. From Princeton Seminary, and a Doctorate of Ministry from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Peter is the author of multiple books and is widely known for a series of profound daily prayers, Empirically Press's book series Centering Prayers, which is the center of our conversation here today. Peter and I woke up early to talk about prayer as abiding, centering and radiating. To talk about Peter's unfolding journey since we last spoke in 2017 or 2018 and the ripening of the role of the Advent season. We talk about this and so much more. And as always, you can visit contemplified.com for the show notes on this episode and learn more about Peter, his church and the contemplative school that he mentions in this episode by going to christchurchteluride.com that's christchurchteluride.com so without further ado, now join me in raising a glass to my guest today, Peter Trabenhaas.

Finding you here this morning.

[Peter Traben Haas]

For a long time I could not have said this, but I certainly am in heaven on earth. I live in Telluride, Colorado. I moved here in June this year to take a call to serve as Christ Presbyterian Church's pastor. Which is this idyllic little church in this mountain valley and I can just over here I could see the mountain peaks and the ski runs. It's exquisitely beautiful. And when I first visited here, my wife said, what do you think? And I said I feel like my soul is looking at my soul.

[Paul Swanson]

Wow.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Like somehow the grandeur of the beauty of this place just is what I needed like a food I really needed to inspire me for the next half of my life. So my commute is like a 7 second walk underneath two huge pine trees to the church. We live in the manse right next door to the church and this is my office in the basement of the manse. So it's a beautiful context for ministry and a really unique group of people at the church. It's the oldest and first church In Telluride. It was a mining town, so it has this lineage. The church burned down in 1966 and then they rebuilt this thing, but. So it's not the original structure, but it's still really quite beautiful and cozy and all decorated for Christmas. I'm over sharing, but you can tell I'm really grateful.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah, you're painting a beautiful image of a church nestled in Telluride, which is not a place to sneeze at for its beauty and grandeur. I can only imagine that reflection of soul and vastness.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

So you've been there six, seven months. What's the qualitative difference that you can feel from living there in that kind of environment on your own body, mind and soul?

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I wish everyone could experience this quality of life. I spent the last 17 years basically living in San Antonio or Austin. And the last year I was commuting an hour and a half every day one way from Austin to San Antonio to serve a church there in downtown San Antonio for a year. So I don't get in my car. Days, weeks can go by and I never get in my car because I walk everywhere. The grocery store is just around the corner. Everything's here. The trailheads are here, the gondola's a block away. So I find myself slowing down in a way that my soul really wanted to do and didn't know how to do it in our, in my normal day to day world of commuting to work in Austin. So the slow quality of life is really, I commend that as a way of recapturing balance, but also the beauty of nature, you know, all around. Just to sit in the Aspen groves this fall, totally golden. It felt like I was in a swimming pool of gold. It was just exquisite. So it's really been, in a certain sense for me, a kind of crowning blessing or just a reward, if you could use that kind of language. For the last 24, 25 years, I've served churches in places I wouldn't have necessarily chosen. I felt just called and I went there, I served there. But here I really wanted to be here, and I really want to be here. So it's a really blessed experience for me. The other thing is I would come up to St Benedict's Monastery a couple times a year, maybe at least once a year for the last 15, 20 years. And not only just visiting with monks there. Father Thomas Keating was there and Basil Pennington was there. Well, no, Basil wasn't there. What was the Other guy's name. I'm blanking at the moment. But anyway, it was just an extraordinary time of renewal in the mountains. And there was something about being high in the mountains that, especially in wintertime, that evoked something from my spirit on my spiritual journey and lifted me up. And I always like to say, to behold these mountains is to be held by them or by something bigger than myself. Mountains are like the ocean in a certain sense. They're vertical waves. The ocean's. This horizontal is vastness, and the mountains are vertical vastness. And certain times I look up at the mountains at dusk or dawn, and I can just see the edge of the ridge. And it does look like a massive tidal wave. It's just frozen there, about to crest over. So I don't know. Mountain and an ocean inspire me. But I was thinking that tragic news that they were selling St. Benedict's Monastery. I just couldn't believe it, that the monks were closing it down. And I thought, we need a gathering. Contemplatives need a gathering place high in the mountains. And I hope Telluride can become that. It is already a gathering place for people. In the summer, every weekend, there's a festival, you know, the Telluride Music festival, the Telluride Movie festival. So I hope that my little church can host a gathering of contemplatives that we can in some way capture, recapture what was lost from losing St. Benedict's Monastery. It'll never be the same, and we can't. It would be amazing to build a monastery here, but the location we build our houses and our houses build us. And I think that where we live is very, very important. And unfortunately, a lot of people, most people on this planet, for most of human history, didn't have a choice on where they could live. But Covid allowed all these people who normally could never live in Telluride to move to Telluride, and they're still here. So we've got all these young families of young professionals who can work from anywhere, who are here now. And the church is kind of in a renaissance. So it's really quite extraordinary the context I find myself in. So I'm very grateful.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah, that's incredible. I wasn't expecting myself to want to move to Telluride this morning. But you're. You're painting that picture. And even just the imagery of, like, I know of the Telluride Music festival and the film festival, and even, as you mentioned, like, a contemplative gathering there, like, I. My spirit lifted. I think that's A beautiful idea.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, may it be so.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah, may it be so. A question I'd love to ask because I haven't had very many people back on the podcast and you. As we were sorting out before we hit record, was 2018 that we last connected like this. And a question my wife likes to ask for friends she hasn't seen in a bit is what has become clearer since the last time we spoke. Is there anything that you can point to that's become clear since the last time we spoke?

[Peter Traben Haas]

I've been on a journey since 2017. In 2017, I took a call to serve as the second pastor of the Church of Conscious Harmony in Austin, Texas, which is the world's largest contemplative church. It's also built on the inner psychology teaching of Gurdjieff and the capital W Work, they call it the work. Cynthia Brejeaud draws a lot upon the work. The Enneagram comes right out of Gurdjieff. He was really the first person to articulate that in a psychological format. So it was an incredible. It is an incredible church. And the founder retired, and he was my mentor. So for about eight, nine years, he was my spiritual father. And when it came time for he and his wife to retire, they were the founding pastors. After 37 years, he basically kind of asked me to be his successor. And then the board ultimately went through their process, and they did call me. It was an opportunity of a lifetime, a grace of a lifetime. I felt totally overwhelmed by the opportunity to lead that church. I was 45 when I started there, which was the same age Tim Cook was when he started the church, which is kind of interesting. So I started in 2017, 2018, 2019. Covid hit 2020. We had started this school called the Journey School, which was an online esoteric, basically Christian contemplative school. And it just boomed and Covid hit, and it just was a lifeline for us. But I was doing all this writing. In addition to the weekly sermons, Wednesday and Sundays, I was also doing a lot of writing and teaching and going in depth to the Gurdjieff teaching and trying to integrate Guruji's teaching, which is essentially a Gnosticism, a neo Gnosticism that's very, very practical and hooked up to a cosmology. So it's very seductive. It answers huge, big questions that are things that I've always had questions for. I'd never heard answers like this. Like, for example, the Guruji fork says, why do bad things happen on this planet? Why does God allow bad things. Why are bad things happening? And the work's answer is, because we're in a bad location in the universe. We're far away from the center. So God's omnipotence is limited by distance, apparently, in the Gurdjief teaching. But anyway, so just to make this short, I was really doing my best to integrate the work teaching and the contemplative Christian tradition, which is what Church of Conscious Harmony does. They say we stand on the two legs of the work in the inner tradition of contemplative Christianity. And I was really having fun with it. I was very productive, very fruitful in writing all this stuff weekly emails for several years. But I went on a little renewal retreat to my alma mater seminary. And I'm sitting in the library and I'm doing this research on the contemplative tradition, like its origins and whatnot. And I just have something happen that has never happened to me before. In that clarity I had, I would use the words received. I received like a gut punch. It was very visceral, an inner rebuke. An inner rebuke. And I was quickened to cry. And 20 years, 25 years of review since I graduated seminary. And so I was in this place of reflection. But this deep rebuke, like, who do you think you are eviscerating Christianity in the name of contemplative process and perspective? Who do you think you are linking these things up with another lineage? And it was an interesting experience because I've appreciated so much of the work teaching, the Gurdjief teaching. But at the same time, I had been in it deep enough for over 12 years and tried to integrate it enough to Christianity with integrity. I wouldn't write things that I couldn't say with integrity. And I realized that I had gone down a rabbit hole. I had been a rabbit hole that was perhaps, you know, a useful U turn or detour, but in my life. But I realized I can no longer remain in this tradition of trying to integrate. And I recused myself from the work and especially the teaching, some of the teachings of Bernadette Roberts, who I had written, I'd published some of her books and been very close friend with her. And I realized that these two things were happening in my spiritual journey right around as I turned 50, that I had to say I couldn't believe that it was happening. So I was struggling with this for about a year and a half. And then I finally said, I went on a little retreat, and I discerned that I needed to leave the Church of Conscious Harmony. And I would wait for my next call. And I wouldn't just leave without a call. And sure enough, within a couple months, a call came to me out of the blue to serve as an interim pastor in San Antonio. And that was my way to depart to Church of Conscious Harmony. So I left Church of conscious harmony last September 2023. And then within a short period of time, I got the call to come here. So what's different from our conversation last time is huge. I went through a crucible of the seductions of, and I would say the dangers of the esoteric dimension that is awaiting contemplatives, and almost drawing contemplatives into the mystical dimension and the esoteric dimension. And really, there's no limit to where people can go out of that sphere once you get into the contemplative dimension. And so I find myself. You can read this in my preface of my new book. I'm trying to say the silence and the gift of the contemplative tradition is huge. But the silence is only good as it serves its master, the center, the living Christ. And actually, I've stopped saying the living Christ because people are. I, for years, was embarrassed of saying the name Jesus. And I felt the Logos theology was my ticket away from Jesus and into some mystical dimension that allowed for other aspects of what we would just call the universal Christ, as some people have made famous. And what people mean by the universal Christ is so eviscerated and so diffuse, it can mean anything. It can mean consciousness itself. It can mean the universal mind. It can mean. It doesn't mean Jesus of Nazareth for most people when they say the universal Christ, people are embarrassed by Jesus so that we've retreated to this universal Christ. And I'm the biggest proponent. I've been a big proponent of that, wrote about it, you know, tried to get away from Jesus. That's why I was so attracted to Bernadette Roberts. But I'm telling people it's a dead end. Ultimately, it's a dead end. And as I explored that for myself, it wasn't like I went looking to find it, that it was a dead end. I didn't mean to go find it, but I. I just was doing a lot of research on the origins of the Christian mystical tradition and just realized that the truth is that if you read the Gospels, the canonical Gospels, there is nothing there that can support so much of the mystical and contemplative models that emerged after the Christians were influenced by Greek philosophy, particularly the Platonic Tradition coming through the Neoplatonic stream, through Alexandria and the writings of Clement of Alexandria in Origen. And then ultimately it got filtered up through people like Pseudodionysius and Meister Eckhart, and then got systematized into the classic threefold purgation, illumination, Union of St Teresa and John of the Cross. Now, I'm not saying their ideas are bad. I'm just saying that as I did the research, I realized this is not biblical. There's no biblical basis for these models of human transformation and the spiritual journey. The models are imposed. They're coming from human experience. And some people are trying to fit their human experience into these models, and they can't find where they fit in the model because the model's imposed and the model is artificial in many ways. So I'm not saying that there's not principles or useful or experiences that are like purgative experiences or illuminative experiences or unitive experiences. It's true. All of that's true. But all put together, it becomes this system that for me and I saw at the Church of Conscious Harmony, became an idol. It came a replacement for the reverence of the living God, creator of the heavens and the earth, and the revelation of the Word of God in Scripture. So I've been definitely on a journey. And so my. My mission now is to reintegrate my biblical background and with my contemplative experiences and disposition and to build. I don't even want to use the word build, but I want to use the word explore. Explore how this connection can be fruitful for me for the next half of my life and also for the people I'm leading. So I'm excited about it and never been happier, actually. Wow.

[Paul Swanson]

That has been a journey since we last spoke.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, it's a long answer.

[Paul Swanson]

No, it's great. I love hearing the ins and outs and like. And one of the things that I feel like lands on me is just the circuitous way that the spiritual journey unfolds that you can't predict with.

[Peter Traben Haas]

A.

[Paul Swanson]

Living God, God with us. Like, there's no way to predict the path that will be final. And I think that is the. One of the gifts of the contemplative dimension that I lean into is the ever new breaking moment. And what does that mean? And to hear you talk about this, at least how I'm hearing it, like a deeper devotion to Jesus as the God man, as the Son of God, like to live in that in a different. In practice and teaching is really. I don't hear Many people going that route after going through an. After being steeped in an esoteric system. I'm just kind of enjoying hearing how your story's unfolding and your own sense of aliveness in that.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, thank you. It's been a recovery and a reintegration, a hard won reintegration for me. I came from a very evangelical background and very biblical and moved away from that for a long, long time. I think of what it is said that when Gurdjieff died and when his chief interpreter and student, they had a fractured relationship, P.D. uspensky died. These two behemoths of the 20th century in the Aztec world that we're just now discovering from, you know, at a popular level. They both said something when they were dying to their students, basically that went something like, you've gotta throw it all out and start for yourselves, start over. So there's this wisdom, and I mean the little quip that when St. Thomas Aquinas, who was just this magisterial theologian in the 13th century, when he died, basically he said, it's all straw. You know, all my books, all my theology, which the world basically built Christianity on, and he says, it's all straw. So there is something about letting go of these systems and structures that introduces that second navitae. But this is even beyond the second navitae. This is a return for me in a reintegration in a way that I was unexpecting, not expecting at all. So I'm excited to see where it goes. There's one word in the New Testament that really is, I feel, like the contemplative's mantra. And I hate the way words divide people up. We're contemplatives, we're actives, we're in order of external ministry, we're in order of the internal silence, whatever. Everyone is a contemplative in my book. They just may not know it. The guys who I ministered to in Iowa, at a church there, they'd go every fall and sit in deer stands for six, seven, eight hours a day. I'm like, you guys are contemplatives. You just are freaking. All you do is sit there in the silence. This sense of. I don't know where I was going with that. I had a statement I wanted to make. But.

[Paul Swanson]

That universal call to contemplation and how it's not special. I find one. Let me just mention, I talked to the poet J. Drew Latham, and he writes a lot about being in the Deer Stand and how it is like, I don't know if you would use that exact phrasing, but that it is a contemplative practice.

[Peter Traben Haas]

And I love.

[Paul Swanson]

There's a quote by Tessa Balecki where, like, contemplatives are not unique people, but every person is a unique contemplative. So how we orientate to that posture and stance is just different for each of us. And sometimes it looks like an adir stand, sometimes it looks like walking in nature, or I just appreciate the multivocality of what it means to be contemplative so it doesn't become prestigious or elite or other than. Because that, to me, is the danger of losing the beauty of the incarnational reality that we're invited into.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, the early Christians were struggling with those super spiritual types, you know, and it's sort of this. This hierarchy of. It's very dangerous. But I just remember what I was trying to say that the Bible. Go ahead. In the Gospels. That's, you know, I think the great friend of contemplatives is the word Jesus used is abiding. Abide with me. Abiding, centering, radiating. So these are three words I'm hooking on to describe the biblical perspective of the journey. You know, abiding with Christ or Jesus being centered in that relationship and then radiating out so we don't lose. We're not navel gazers. To the extent that we forget the world or escape the world, we are centered and abiding and then radiating. You'll know a tree by its fruit. There's definitely biblical words to talk about. The spiritual theology and the spiritual journey.

[Paul Swanson]

Amen to that. In that sense, abiding is just one of those words that has been deeply resonant for me since I first kind of learned of it, studying the Gospel of John in particular. And it becomes kind of heightened for me during this season of Advent where we're recording during this Advent. This will be released during Advent. I know Advent is something that you have thought a lot about, written a lot about. What do you think the significance is of this season of Advent? That makes it kind of a unique container for how we might drop into this abiding, centering and radiating.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Well, that's a great question. I love this season. And of course, the Latin Adventus means appearing or nearing or even revealing to see the wisdom of the liturgical expression that has emerged. Advent wasn't a big deal until the Middle Ages. It may be a little bit later. But the wisdom of placing the liturgical season of Advent the way the church has done it and it's really matured in the recent centuries, especially in the Protestant community. The last hundred years, the concept and the experience of Advent has really developed. It's classic expression, you know, the four candles of Advent, the Christ candle, the Advent wreath, all these are fairly modern things. But the fact that Advent occurs in the northern hemisphere when it does is very insightful. And I've often reflected upon this and used it in terms of my own daily spiritual practice. But if you can think of human history, since around the year 1900, we've had electricity. So that means 4, 5, 6,000 years of recorded human history has been without electricity. So that means our only source of light for most of human history and most all of humankind. 99.99% of humankind was fire or candles or whale oil or whatever, some sort of oil, olive oil, flame was how people saw in the dark. And if you can think about this planet and just as a visual for 5, 6, 7,000 years of human recorded history, every single night around this planet, the planet was totally dark. You couldn't see a light from the sky. So now we see these satellite images and the whole planet is lit up. Yeah, when I was a boy, I'd see those, those pictures. And Africa was dark, South America was dark, China was dark, India was mostly dark. You know, America and Europe were lit up. But now, 50 some years later, I look at that and the whole planet is lit up electrified. In the northern hemisphere, on December 21, we experienced what is the lowest nadir of the sun on the southern horizon. We call it the winter solstice. And for most of humankind, when that sun started going down in the fall, they must have panicked and said, will it come back? Will that light ever come back? And on December 21st, it hits this lowest note in nadir. And you know, if you're up in Canada or in Alaska, it's dark all the time. So the physical world at this time of the season, at this time of the year is mirroring to us something of the darkness, the physical darkness symbolized by spiritual darkness, symbolized by the physical darkness and the vulnerability that human beings live on the edge of total dependence upon the sun. The physical sun is representative of Christ, the sun. What the sun is to our solar system. Jesus is to humankind the son of God. And if the sun went away nine minutes later, planet Earth would start to freeze. So this solstice thing is a big, big deal. We just don't realize it because we're electrified and the lights are always on. But if the sun didn't come back, we'd be dead. Life as we know it would be dead. So solstice at wintertime is this total moment of recognizing our contingency upon light. Not just physical light, but spiritual light, and the revelation that comes from above, from God. And for a lot of human beings, that was celebrated in kind of, you know, you could just say mythological ways. What they used to call, you know, paganism, you know, just sacrifices, fires, bonfires and whatnot. Yeah, rituals. But there's something that we need to recapture in the. The rituals. So on December 21, that sun is kind of hovering there in the lowest horizon. It seems to sit there 22nd, 23rd, 24th. And on the 25th of December, the day we mark as the birth of Christ, the sun visibly has moved a little bit on the horizon, and we move toward June 21st, the summer solstice. The church in its wisdom. I don't know if most people miss this. The feast of Christmas, the birth of Jesus on December 21, right near the solstice. June 21, the Feast of John the Baptist, who says, I must decrease so that he might increase. So on June 21, the sun starts to decrease all the way down to December 21st. And on December 21st or so, the birth of Christ is celebrated and the sun starts to rise. It's a fascinating dimension of the liturgy that's related to cosmology. So to sum up the season of effort, I spend time in the morning and the evening watching the light. It takes two hours to watch the light. From sunset, right before sunset to dark, two hours. Most people where they are in the middle of the country, middle of the hemisphere, I should say, of North America, most people experience about two hours from total, from sunset to total dark. And to see the quality of light for two hours, just sit there and watch the light. Most people can't do that every day, but if you could do that one day a week for each of the four weeks of Advent, I commend that as a practice just to be still and watch the light and watch. Let the light watch you. I love that.

[Paul Swanson]

That's incredible. I live in the Southwest, and of course we have some marvelous sunsets. And you can see the light change, especially in that two hour window against the red rock. And everything illuminates in different ways. I can only imagine the grandeur of Telluride in that same, same play, playfulness of light. And what a great practice for Advent because I think the older I get, I relax into noticing the seasonality of things. As the fullness of the cycle and to have that married with my liturgical life and to celebrate the nuances of that. What it means in the seasonality of my own spiritual journey, but also just in the seasonality of the earth's rhythms and to be able to acknowledge the wisdom of the descending light and the emerging light in the darkness. It reminds me of. I studied in Norway for a semester and I was there during part of the winter and it was dark like it so much. The day was in darkness and the Northern lights would. Would happen almost every single night. And it became this thing of. Of just awe and wonder of. You know, you get tired of being in that when you live as electrified as we do and are used to that when you live in a place where it. You get that taste of that continual darkness. And then it's almost like the Northern lights are this bizarre gift from God to just enchant you and delight you into remembering that this world is far more mysterious and beautiful than you can imagine. And to collapse it into darkness is. Has nothing to offer or like everything should be, to my conditioned electrifiedness. You miss out on the stars. You miss out on the Northern lights. You miss out on what it feels like to be held in that darkness too. I think.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yes. That's one of your gifts that I really appreciate, is in your writings, your monthly newsletter. You have a real gift for perceiving the beauty in the common and ordinary, whether it's nature or your kids or family life. I appreciate the way you're a poet of. Of nature and it's your muse and I address. Thank you for sharing your gift.

[Paul Swanson]

I appreciate that that means a lot. And I feel like there's recognizing like here because as I was. I mean, even from the moment you said at the beginning of this conversation about the golden pools of the aspens, or you used imagery like that, like evokes something. And I think in your book Centering Prayers Daily Peace for Turbulent Times, Volume two, like, it has that same qualitative richness of these prayers that, as you say, offer abiding, centering and radiating possibilities. And so to be able to walk through this book, there's one every day. But to have it become a part of my own rhythm where I'm kind of going all over the place here with this, but I appreciate the different ways of speaking the names of God.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

And then dropping into the prayer after there's. You can never run out of names of intimate names for God. And that's what I feel part of the gift of this prayer book is. Is bringing forth these names and then dropping into the kind of the centering power of what prayers like this can do. How did this book come to be that you knew you needed to write it with such a poetic voice and with the various names of addressing God?

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, I mean, it's something that I write for myself more than anything. My first book, which turned out to be Volume one, I mean, it was just called Centering Prayers. What's the subtitle for Centering Prayers? One Year Daily Companion for Going Deeper into the Love of God. That book came into being because I was writing a blog every day, a daily prayer and reflection over a period of three years when I was really in formation with my mentor, Tim Cook, and just thriving in the Basking in the discovery of the depths of the contemplative tradition. And I didn't anticipate writing a book, but I had a little month off break between leaving Austin and going up to Iowa to serve a different church. And I decided to compile all the prayers. And I put a prayer on one page, and it was about that thick of paper, and I just wrapped it in a red ribbon, put it in a box, and sent it to editor, Paraclete Press, you know, Massachusetts. And. And I didn't expect. I really didn't think that anyone would get it or do anything with it. So a couple months went by, and I get this voicemail on my church message, and it was the John Sweeney, the then editor in chief at Parakeet Press. And he said, very interested in your book of prayers. And I just almost fell to the ground, I was so dumbfounded. So that was that first book, and they did a great job of that. And a decade went by, and they had reached out and they wanted to do a women's version. So we did that. And I said. Jess said, well, I've been writing more prayers. You know, I could. I could do another volume. So that's how that came to be. And I was so grateful that they were interested in doing volume two. But volume two represents Peter and my spiritual journey, my life. I write from my morning prayer. I write from my morning silence, oftentimes looking out my window. So I write from my own experience in what I've been reading and what scriptures are landing. And so it's like every morning, new manna shows up, and I must write. So in a certain sense, it's very personal. Like, all those prayers that I've written meant something to me, and I was going through something, and I articulated it. What I was a lot of. It's very personal if someone wants to read into it. So I feel like the best gift I can give to the world is reflecting my experience and being vulnerable and honest about my lived experience. And if it helps someone, wonderful. I read it every day. My wife and I read a prayer every day from both books. And it's amazing to me how a little phrase will speak to me. And I know I wrote it, but I don't own it. You know, I don't feel like I'm not that smart, but I feel like it's very. Just fruitful. Like the spirit was working in my life. And it's fruitful. And may it be fruitful for many other people. I think it's historic writing. I mean, I really feel like it's a model of integration that is hard to find if I can pat myself on the back. But I don't take it to be my. It's not just me. I don't think it's my creativity. It's what the silence does, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. It's what abiding does. It makes people fruitful in every season of their life. Like Psalm 1 says, Blessed is the person who is centered in the Word. And that's the word. Center them. They will be fruitful in every season, like a tree beside the living water. So that's just. I'm grateful that someone wanted to publish it and put it out into the world. And then the emphasis of nature also, I just, you know, I really wanted to go deep with nature and. Because that's really where I find so much solace and renewal and comfort, and I find myself again in nature. So it seems like our world is aware of the tipping point that we're at in terms of our relationship with nature. And there's so much friction around how people think about nature and our relationship to it as it's become so politicized. But I think the bottom line is we can say that we're all vulnerable. We're more aware of how vulnerable we are because a thousand years ago they didn't know if there was a tsunami in Japan. We now know it instantly, because I get it on my phone. We now know of all the suffering that's happening because of fires or drought around the world. So maybe we're just more aware of it. But it does raise my consciousness to my vulnerability and our vulnerability. And I start to wonder, well, what's holding the supply chain together? For food, I go to the grocery store, but that's not where my food's coming from. It just appears that way. What's to say the food chain gets broken and there's no milk at the store or no bread. What then? We're so vulnerable and we are so cavalier with nature. And perhaps like me, for most of my life I've taken it for granted. I think it's. To raise people's consciousness to the sacredness of the earth is something I don't know how to do. But I've been humbled by my cavalier attitude toward just treating nature as my recreational place and retreat place. But the native traditions really show me how to live in harmony and coherence with nature. And it's very humbling for me and probably most Westerners, you know. It's very humbling.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah.

[Peter Traben Haas]

To see how vulnerable we've become.

[Paul Swanson]

Well said. I. I think that vulnerability. Gosh, it should lead to humility. To our beautiful but fragmented biped species that we are doing the best we can and yet we've built these systems that are not in harmony with the ways of nature. And so we keep trying to rectify and change nature to be subservient to the way that we want to live. And the reckoning of catastrophes. And just if it doesn't put you in a space of vulnerability, I feel like you're not paying attention to what this planet is trying to teach us. I don't know intentionally, but through these catastrophes of wildfires and we keep rebuilding in places that are on fire and we keep. How do we respond to this? How do we be good stewards and deep relationship with the land as. It's a question that I. I think about a lot. And I'm also a city dweller. I live in the desert and this desert is holding a lot of people. And how do I. How it changes how I think about water. But doesn't necessarily mean that I should also live here either. So all these like conflicting notions about place and relationality, they do all lead me to a place ultimately of vulnerability and humility because I feel very, very at the whim of possibility. And I do feel like your book leans into that space of vulnerability. And how can I constantly consent to that? By turning. That sounds like step one of the 12 steps. Constantly turning myself over to God. And here I am. And my complete vulnerability again. That's beautiful. Yeah. How do you. Growing up in the tradition I grew up in spontaneous prayers were the thing. Like there was the Lord's Prayer, of course, and we had like our family table grace that we would repeat. But everything else, there was almost an emphasis on spontaneous prayer. And again, as I've. The path that I've been walking, as I've gone this way, I've really come to revel in written prayers of other people and seeing them as kind of how you were speaking to it of not yours alone, that they were written through you. And I get to join and participate in that. How has your relationship to written and spontaneous prayers been a part of the mix of how you approach prayer?

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, I too, came from that tradition of listening to people pray. And what you end up hearing a lot of. I don't mean to be judgmental, but Jesus said, don't judge. But you know, tree by its fruit is that you get a lot of people's. The manifestation of their personality comes out in these charismatic prayers from the heart, spontaneous prayers. I pray spontaneously all the time, especially with pastoral visits or whatnot. But I'll also do written prayers if I'm feeling dry or empty. So the one thing about these verbal, spontaneous prayers that people make is that it reveals a lot about themselves. When you listen to someone pray more than any other thing, they're telling you their theology. They don't even know what they believe, oftentimes theologically, but it manifests through their prayers how they speak about God, how they speak about what's happening or what they're asking. Prayer reveals people's theology and personality more than if they were drunk, oftentimes person for what they really are. And it's very revealing and very useful to see. So for that reason, I like it. But I end up seeing a lot of youth groups, for example, kids who are in their late high school years or early college years, but oftentimes in 16, 17, 18. They mirror how their pastors pray in these verbal prayers. And you get a lot of hubris. You get a lot of the personality in it. Oftentimes the I, the personality is at the center. I just want to thank you, Lord, because you are Father, Heavenly Father. We know that you know this type of.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm having flashbacks.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yes. For me, the developmental psychologists really helped me see that there's a place for all these kinds of manifestations of Christianity or spiritual life. Like when you go and see the geological formations, the cutouts on roads, a geologist can say, well, that's a million years ago. That's 10 million years ago. That's 100 million years ago. In a similar way, psychologically and spiritually, I think we can say, well, this is what Fowler called logical faith. This is More unitive. There's definitely a maturing, if you could use that word, that people experience as they grow. So our youth group experiences where a lot of us get our early formation in prayer end up a lot of people just stop praying because they've grown beyond that. And so there's all that dimension. It does reveal human consciousness. Prayer reveals human consciousness. What we think about God, what we think about the universe, what we think about humans. It's very instructive to listen to people's prayers. They say a lot. And I started out my spiritual journey. I took a job at my college working the front desk from 4am to 8am so that I could get paid to do my homework. And for the first hour I would sit there and go through my prayer list. I was very much a monk. I didn't know it. I'd be reading my prayer list, verbally praying. But because it was so early and I was tired, I would often I would close my eyes and I knew the prayer list so well I would just be. I'd started to pray it in my heart. Well, unknown to me, I had stumbled upon, you know, non discursive, the prayer of the heart or meditation. Yeah. So I felt every time I'd feel guilty, I fell asleep or I was just drifting, I'd felt so guilty. But now I realize I was being invited deeper into my soul, so to speak and to rest with God, which is the fullest expression of prayer. Because I view the word prayer equals relationship. Like Thomas Keating said, prayer is just relationship with words or silence or not. And from a maturing point of view, this abiding that most of us experience, like when you look into your children's eyes or your lover's eyes, you don't need to say anything. You just experience that abiding oneness or abiding twoness. That's a oneness. The. It's so beyond words. But ultimately that's the. If there is a destination, well, it's certainly a rest stop along our journey. It's just, it's just that, that surrender to being known, to being loved, to letting someone else in, to our inner world. And in the case of the spiritual journey, that's the presence, capital P. Presence.

[Paul Swanson]

That's beautifully said. The yes, the yes to it. And I feel like that is our role. And it's so, the way you're speaking, like it's so intimate. Like prayer is so intimate. And I think about how like my spontaneous prayers now often come from a place that I didn't realize I was Going to say it where, if. And it's often like, just like, lord help me. And it's like coming from someplace deep. And when it comes out of me, I'm. I'm recognizing how, like going back to the vulnerability, how vulnerable I actually am and how I'm actually feeling that. And it comes out in this, like, fervent prayer. And at times I can, like, I can feel my ego being embarrassed by that, like, oh, you're just crying out to God again. But they're actually, it's to me like the banquet of prayer is. However, intimacy is overflowing if it is in those cries and calls to God or in that deep rest like I. And I've experienced that in your book, like these invitations are. Nothing feels left out while yet having a particular prayerful voice. And that. That is a gift in this book of prayers. I don't often resonate in that way with these, but I. I've been smitten by it.

[Peter Traben Haas]

I'm so happy to hear that I do put it out there into the world with the wish that it would infuse people with, increase their hunger for devotion and say something that initiates in them gets the ball rolling. Yeah, because that's how I get inspired. I read something and a word speaks to me and it changes my whole life or day or whatever. So I love. The Eastern Orthodox tradition had a simplicity to their experience and expression of prayer, much more so than the Western tradition coming out of Teresa Vivilla and John of the Cross. The Eastern Orthodox tradition of prayer just had that simple word of Hesychia, that inner stillness of the prayer of the heart and where the head descends to the heart literally. And that inner stillness through the Jesus prayer, you know, it's. It doesn't need to be complicated, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And so many people get caught up in methods that they feel like they don't know how to pray or they shouldn't pray or they don't know what to say. And it is kind of like what you're just saying. It's just like, just let yourself express yourself. And sometimes it does. We feel foolish. It's like we're showing something of our soul that's so vulnerable. And I don't know people. I understand why people are afraid or cautious to let that out. And one of my favorite moments in the recent movie is don't look up. The movie don't look up. And you know, the world is about to end and they're all around a dining table this family that's been through so much and their daughter's boyfriend is with them and he's the last kid you'd think that would say this profound prayer. He just speaks from his heart. You know, he prays over the dinner as the world's ending. And to me, it's just such a beautiful example of speaking one's heart. Yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

That'S a great scene to bring up because it's unconventional and unexpected and so poignant. This book is beautiful. And I'm curious not to move on too quickly from this book, but what's drawing you next is you have a lot going on in your life. There's the fullness of Telluride and pastoring. And are any. Anything else drawing you forward? Any other writing projects or things that you would want to share with those listening?

[Peter Traben Haas]

Yeah, well, I'm stepping into a new season in my life where I'm saying yes. I say yes to however I can serve the contemplative dimension of Christianity. There aren't many leaders and there aren't many of us, so whatever I can do to help. And so I'm saying that to the Lord, I'm saying that to the universe, here I am. If there's anything that's useful for me, I'm here, ready to be used. But one of the things I'm most excited about that's been a fruit of this process for me is, you know, I mentioned the school I started basically with the Church of Conscious Harmony, called the Journey School. So I. I'm starting a new school. It's called A Year in the School of Jesus. A Year in the School of Jesus. And it's going to be a three year cycle based on the liturgy and this year's theme, the first theme of the year is a sense of faith, like ascending. But ascending isn't just up, ascending can be out. And in the sense of faith. So this journey of faith, that our journey starts with faith and it's an attempt to. A lot of what Richard Rohr has done for our world is trying to interpret the teachings of Jesus in a way that makes sense for today. Like, if Jesus were here today, how would he say it? What would he be? And so it's very audacious to say, but I'm kind of saying, let's gather together on Thursday nights on Zoom or in person and talk about these ideas. Building a spiritual theology from the teachings of Jesus. What would the teachings of Jesus mean today if he were here? And so I'm really excited about that. And in terms of writing. I've kind of just taken a pause from that. But something is emerging. I've been working a little bit on a spiritual autobiography. Like I've been writing a certain chapter of my life using my journals, and I'm finding that to be really useful exercise to reflect upon. Biography is theology. And so much of my history is remembering the way God has worked in my life, the way I have groped and searched for God's work in my life. Yeah, and I was a really uptight, miserable young theologian. Christianity really did a number on me early in my life at Moody Bible Institute. And I really agonized for God and struggled with existence and the way the world was and theological. Huge theological problems and questions. I was what Erik Erickson, the psychologist, calls a homo religiosis. So the religious man like Martin Luther was, who struggled so much, he was so constipated all the time, and then he finally has this great insight of justification by faith, so changed his life. Well, I wasn't suffering that much, but I'm in a place of joy and naivete and new beginning and also a season of wisdom. So I don't know what'll happen, but I don't really care.

[Paul Swanson]

It's fun to hear you talk in that spirit and you can feel it. It's palpable. If folks were interested in that school, how would they connect to it? How would they find out about it?

[Peter Traben Haas]

Oh, well, just go to A Year in the School of Jesus. A Year in the School of Jesus.

[Paul Swanson]

Great. I'll be sure to link that in the show notes.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Then go to Christ Presbyterian Church Telluride website, too, and click on 25, A Sense of Faith tab. But a year in the schoolofjesus.com describes it a little bit. What's.

[Paul Swanson]

Okay, cool. I look forward to checking it out and we'll put that link there as well. And I don't know if you remember this from our last conversation, but I always like to close our conversation by asking if you were going to pair this conversation on centering prayers, abiding prayers, radiating prayers with a drink, what would be your drink of choice and why?

[Peter Traben Haas]

Oh, that's a great question. Well, if we're on the alcoholic side of things, I would say a beautiful clear glass of champagne just bubbling up, golden, bubbling, just rising up to the light. Champagne this time of year is such a beautiful thing. But on the other hand, after I ski, I love the hot chocolate, so sweet and warm. And I hope the prayers bring that sense of light and warmth to people.

[Paul Swanson]

I love. Even your response is poetic. I think those are both wonderful examples of companion and hopefully someday I can get up to Telluride and we can either clink a glass of champagne or mugs of hot cocoa. That would be wonderful.

[Peter Traben Haas]

Open invitation anytime and just would love to meet you more in person and talk. We got a lot in common so I look forward to.

[Paul Swanson]

Me too. Thanks Peter.

[Peter Traben Haas]

I would love that. Thank you for your work. It's so beautiful in the world.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you for listening to this slow cooked episode of Contemplify. May its delights spark wonder and may any sour patches be sweetened by their folly. Head over to contemplify.com to find the show notes for this episode. Sign up for the monthly Contemplify Non Required Reading list and also the weekly Contemplative practice Lo Fi and Hushed. If you are enjoying Contemplify, rate and review it on your podcast player. The Internet tells me this helps spread the contemplative cheer. The theme song for Contemplify is called Langside by Charles Enns and Darren Hovius. Fellas, thanks as always and of course I am looking forward to bringing you more musings and more conversations with contemplatives kindling the examined life in the world. Until then, be well.

Sa.