Back in June I announced that Eternal Heart is being published as a 4-CD audiobook. As of today, the CD audiobook is now available through my E-Commerce store. You can order it by clicking here.
This means that Eternal Heart is now available in three formats: as a hardcover book, an ebook (Kindle and all other major ebook formats) and audiobook (both streaming and CD). You can order autographed copies of the book from me, along with the CD audiobook. Ebooks are available through all the major ebook suppliers. Here are some links to get you to your favorite supplier:
Hi everyone, just a quick note to let you know that Eternal Heart: the Mystical Path to a Joyful Life is now available as an audiobook on CD.
It’s been available since publication as an Audible audiobook, but for those of us who are old-school and like having our audiobooks on CD, this is a great new product.
It’s the same recording as the Audible version; it’s read by William Sarris, whom I approved, and who does a great job with the narration.
Friends, just a quick note to share my excitement… I have just learned that Eternal Heart has been selected as one of the 50 best spiritual books of 2021 by the editors of the Spirituality and Practice website!
Other books to have received this honor include titles by Diana Butler Bass, Brené Brown, Cynthia Bourgeault, Joy Harjo, Valarie Kaur, James Martin, Brian D. McLaren, John Philip Newell, Christine Valters Paintner and Joyce Rupp! (Talk about feeling like I’ve been invited to sit at the table with all the cool kids!)
I haven’t created any new videos or podcasts of my own for a while — something I hope to change this fall. One of the reasons why I have been AWOL from the world of audio and video content, is because I’ve been invited as a guest on several other podcasts. Most of these have been interested in Eternal Heart, so we’ve talked about that book — but the topics tend to be free-ranging, exploring a variety of concerns related to spirituality, contemplation, writing, and even publishing.
So, if you are looking for a new podcast or two, check out these episodes where I am in conversation with a variety of different interviewers. And if you enjoy a particular interviewer’s style, then go back and check out the other episodes from their podcast.
Spark My Muse
Spark My Muse is hosted by Lisa Colòn DeLay, author of The Wild Land Within. It’s one of my favorite podcasts, and Lisa has been warmly supportive of my work over the years (she and I both lost count of how many times I’ve been on her podcast!). Lisa was one of the first people to interview me specifically about Eternal Heart, and so our conversation was quite fascinating for me as she gave me a first look at how readers might react to the book. Check it out, and be sure to read her book as well.
Messy Jesus Business is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA, whom I met a few years when leading a Celtic retreat in Wisconsin. She is a vibrant, conscious and engaged young religious sister, passionate about spirituality, art and justice. In our conversation she asked me about discovering my vocation as a spiritual director and spiritual teacher; she was very interested in my pagan background but also my love for the mystics and contemplatives of Christianity and beyond, and how the mystics not only inspire us but inform a healthy approach to the intersection between contemplation and justice.
Another podcast that I’m honored to be a “returning guest” on is Jory Pryor’s Methods of Contemplation Podcast. He has a strong practice-orientation to contemplation: he doesn’t just want to talk about contemplative spirituality, he wants to help his listeners to engage in practices that help to cultivate a contemplative heart. In this episode, he and I explore the nature of the eternal heart, the gifts of the spirit that draw us to the Divine, and how the spiritual life can be likened to a Möbius strip.
My friend Alison Umminger is, like me, a writer as well as a spiritual director; her YA novel, American Girlsis a fascinating glimpse into the strange world of adolescence today; as a spiritual director, she is one of several contributors to Sacred Listening, a website and blog featuring a consortium of Ignatian-trained spiritual directors. Allison interviewed me for the blog and posted the audio there, so check it out.
Writing for Your Life is hosted by Brian Allain. Brian has been involved in the publishing world for a number of years now, including editing the book How to Heal Our Divides, sponsoring the “Writing for Your Life” conference, and hosting a series of author interview videos on Youtube, including this one where we discuss Eternal Heart. Enjoy!
Friends, you are invited to a special virtual event: the Eternal Heart Book Launch Celebration!
We will gather via Zoom on Tuesday, June 29, 2021 from 7:30 – 8:45 PM (Eastern Time). Our gathering will include music by folksinger Caroline Herring, and words from two special “Heart Authors” — Lerita Coleman Brown and Colette Lafia!
I’ll read a few selections from the book, have a conversation on the wisdom of the heart with Lerita and Colette, and there will be time for conversation with event attendees as well.
If you want to purchase a copy of the book, the Atlanta-based Cathedral of Saint Philip Bookstore will have autographed copies available for you to purchase online. You can pre-order your copy of the book here.
This event is free, but you’ll need to pre-register. Click on the link above to do so.
About Eternal Heart
In every heart there is a place of infinite longing — and every heart is full of numerous gifts of grace. Contemplative author Carl McColman invites us to discover, celebrate and activate the gifts that are already in our hearts: blessings that lead us to a life filled with meaning, purpose and joy.
About Carl McColman
Carl is the creator of the Anamchara.com website and blog. He is a spiritual director, retreat leader, podcaster, and popular speaker and teacher. He is the author of numerous books, including The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, Answering the Contemplative Call and Befriending Silence.
About the Special Guests
Lerita Coleman Brown is a spiritual director, professor emerita of psychology, heart and transplant recipient, and the author of When the Heart Speaks, Listen.
Caroline Herring is an American folk and country singer, songwriter and musician. Her latest album is Verses.
Colette Lafia is a San Francisco-based retreat leader, spiritual director, and author of several books, including The Divine Heart: Seven Ways to Live in God’s Love.
Would you like to help spread the word about this event? Click here to download a PDF flyer for the book launch celebration, that you can share with friends, or print out to distribute at your church, bookstore, etc. Thank you!
In February I published the first words of endorsement that my forthcoming book, Eternal Heart, received, and then in March I published more words of support from authors like Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Adam Bucko, Br. Paul Quenon, Mirabai Starr, Judith Valente, and others.
Today’s post features more words of praise from advance readers.
Scroll down to see these latest endorsements that Eternal Heart has received. I hope this will whet your appetite for the book. If you would like to read it, please pre-order it — pre-orders are instrumental for making decisions as to how much marketing effort will be put behind a book, and how prominently it will be featured on Amazon.com and other retailer websites. So your pre-order makes a difference. Thank you.
Carl McColman offers us another gift of contemplative insight and illumination. Eternal Heart invites the reader into various themes of the mystical life, deepening each one with wisdom from mystics of various traditions to help reveal the way to oneness as one of unity rather than division. He encourages us all to embrace this mystical gift and vision in our lives, one our world is so hungry for, and charts the way through accessible practices. Reading it I felt my heart kindled by both joy and possibility.
— Christine Valters Paintner abbess of www.AbbeyoftheArts.com
author of Sacred Time: Embracing
an Intentional Way of Life
Mysticism and contemplation can feel abstract and challenging even to those of us who are most curious about them, but Carl McColman’s Eternal Heart grounds these ancient practices in concepts familiar to everyone. Interweaving storytelling, scripture, and interfaith tools for contemplation, this book helps our hearts find a path toward the things they most long for.
— Kaya Oakes author of Radical Reinvention and Slanted and Enchanted
“Eternal Heart companions us tenderly through our restlessness and longing on a journey of presence and relationship with God. A seasoned spiritual author and guide, Carl McColman invites us to a place we already are, but haven’t quite found. In these pages, we re-encounter love, discernment, faith, silence, imagination, courage, renewal, and other gifts of the heart that engender sustaining hope and joy. You will be blessed by this book!”
— Lisa Colón DeLay host of the Spark My Muse podcast and
author of The Wild Land Within
Many of us feel comfortable using labels like, “teacher,” “healer,” “artist,” or “activist” to describe ourselves. Yet how many of us would feel comfortable using the term “mystic” when describing our spiritual lives? In response, Carl McColman makes a compelling case for why more of us should claim and embrace the mystical path. Not only does McColman explore how we can do this, he provides the encouragement and wisdom we need to get started – or to go deeper – on this journey.
— Kate H. Rademacher author of Reclaiming Rest
Carl McColman writes about mysticism with a clarity of vision that spans a breadth of traditions. I have assigned his Big Book of Christian Mysticism in my classes on Christian Spirituality and my students report back to me that they have loved it, and found it an accessible and welcome bridge from our everyday world to the esoteric worlds of saints, monastics, and Church doctors. Now with Eternal Heart, McColman has brought his readers on an even more intimate journey. Each chapter goes deep into the works of luminaries like Julian of Norwich and Thomas Merton, but ultimately this is a story about McColman’s own pilgrimage of growth and healing. Weaving the wisdom traditions of more than two millennia alongside a personal narrative of yearning, love, and loss, McColman has delivered a capstone book that will be a welcome resource to those on all points of the contemplative path.
— David Dault Executive Producer and Host, Things Not Seen and
Assistant Professor of Christian Spirituality at Loyola University Chicago
Last month I published the first words of endorsement that my forthcoming book, Eternal Heart, received — from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Adam Bucko, Colette Lafia, Br. Paul Quenon and Christiana Peterson. Today’s post features five more words of praise from advance readers.
Scroll down to see these latest endorsements that Eternal Heart has received. I hope this will whet your appetite for the book. If you would like to read it, please pre-order it — pre-orders are instrumental for making decisions as to how much marketing effort will be put behind a book, and how prominently it will be featured on Amazon.com and other retailer websites. So your pre-order makes a difference. Thank you
Eternal Heart is a generous invitation to enter into the heart of the mystery. Carl McColman offers a lens of love through which to gaze upon eternal gifts hidden in the very center of all that is. Such sacred seeing transforms what it beholds.
— Mirabai Starr author of God of Love and Wild Mercy
There is likely in each of us a mystic within, waiting for us to open a door in the heart to release that hidden part of ourselves most in touch with the divine, and to embrace it and nurture it. Eternal Heart shows us how to unlock that door so that we can seek what is eternal and sacred in all things — our conversations, walks, and all we see, taste and hear. It is a book whose “heart practices” we will feel drawn to repeatedly over the different seasons of our lives.”
— Judith Valente author of How To Be: What The Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us
About Happiness, Meaning and Community and Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home and a Living Faith
Eternal Heart is a work of humanly sung companionship… as timely as it is transcendent. The author reminds us that becoming more truly human is not only the first step toward the mystical vocation; it is the primary practical assignment of life on earth and the first step toward a fruitful and contemporary holiness.
— Therese Schroeder-Sheker musician and author of Transitus:
A Blessed Death in the Modern World
In his newest book, Carl McColman invites readers to journey into the depths of the heart and find the spiritual gifts that await each of us there. While drawing primarily from the Christian tradition, he includes other religions, too, and shows how their wisdom teachings exist in dialogue to guide us along the heart’s path. McColman himself is a gentle and wise guide to the inner life. With beauty and simplicity, he opens the gifts of the heart, encouraging us to receive the blessings that sometimes lie hidden until we’re able to see them anew. I recommend Eternal Heart for all who seek to experience life’s blessings in a more loving and intimate way.
— Lisa Deam author of 3000 Miles to Jesus
“For years, I have loved using a set of prayer beads that I made myself, moving my fingers along the strand to center my heart. Moving through the chapters of Eternal Heart is like praying with a string of smooth beads. Each one invites a sacred pause, and, together, they are a work of prayerful beauty.”
— The Rev. Dr. Stuart Higginbotham
Episcopal priest and author of The Heart of a Calling
Friends, I am so happy to report that my forthcoming book, Eternal Heart, has now made it through the editing and proofreading process and the publisher is preparing it for publication. It’s always an exciting point in the publishing process — and part of what makes this time so wonderful is that we send the manuscript to other authors and reviewers to get some advance words of encouragement or praise. Obviously, the main purpose of this is to feature such endorsements on the back cover or inside the front cover. But there’s no reason I can’t share them with you now, here on my blog!
Scroll down to see the first five endorsements that Eternal Heart has received. (More to come!) I hope this will whet your appetite for the book. If you would like to read it, please pre-order it — pre-orders are instrumental for making decisions as to how much marketing effort will be put behind a book, and how prominently it will be featured on Amazon.com and other retailer websites. So your pre-order makes a difference. Thank you.
Eternal Heart is a beautiful offering that not only informs us about what contemplation is but also gives us a felt sense of its quiet aliveness and joy. Reading it feels like listening to a gentle call. One that calls us back to our hearts — that place deep within—where we feel held and loved by God and where God is a living reality. Rich in teachings from the classical mystical tradition, this book is not only meant to be read but also prayed.
— the Rev. Adam Bucko director of The Center for Spiritual Imagination
co-author of Occupy Spirituality and The New Monasticism
There is no better time than now to delve into the subject of the heart. Carl McColman takes us into a metaphysical and seamless journey to gather a kind of joy so immense we cannot grasp it. He expands the mind with questions of what might be beyond infinity, beyond eternal. He leads us further into our hearts as sleuths in the mystery of life. What joy! Eternal Heart is a wonderful offering.
— Zenju Earthlyn Manuel ordained Zen Buddhist priest and author of several books
including The Deepest Peace: Contemplations From a Season of Stillness.
Eternal Heart is a sustained rhapsody on every aspect of the spiritual life, woven in a language full of insight, rich in reference, speaking directly to the love-hungry heart.
— Brother Paul Quenon ocso poet, Cistercian monk, and author of Unquiet Vigil and In Praise of the Useless Life
With kindness and courage, Carl McColman invites his readers to travel with him on a journey, well-paved by ancient mystics and contemporary sages. McColman himself is a wise guide, offering both personal stories and spiritual practices to lead us into an awakened heart, one that is conscious of its own restless limitations and ready to discover that the loving presence of God was there all along. This book is a treasure for the heart.
— Christiana N. Peterson author of Awakened by Death and Mystics and Misfits
In Eternal Heart, Carl McColman illuminates the pathway of the heart with wisdom, ease, and a touch of joy. Through the aperture of mysticism, he draws from an expansive range of faith and prayer traditions, inviting us into eternal possibility. Eternal Heart shines a light on the teachings, practices, and ways of seeing that can bring us closer to divine presence.
— Colette Lafia author of The Divine Heart: Seven Ways to Live in God’s Love and Seeking Surrender.
St. Augustine said that the human heart is restless until it rests in God.
I certainly have a restless heart, and I suspect most people do. But what if the restlessness in our hearts is actually a gift — that helps us to live life fully, grounded in love, compassion and purpose?
This is the starting point for my next book, Eternal Heart: The Mystical Path to a Joyful Life, which will published next June by Broadleaf Books.
Eternal Heart weaves together wisdom from great saints and mystics to celebrate how the heart is calibrated to receive and share Divine Love and wisdom — gifts that can help us lead a truly joyful life.
It’s based on a basic idea I have been exploring, praying, and reflecting on for several years now: that the heart is filled with gifts from God. Every heart. Not just the heart of a saint or a mystic. Not just the heart of so-called “good” people. Every heart — Every human heart is a chalice that has received gifts from God.
Gifts like love, joy, wisdom, and the capacity to experience the presence of God. Those are just a few of the inner gifts that Eternal Heart explores.
My last book, Unteachable Lessons, ends with this principle: “the time will come when you need to close the book and go on… with only your heart as your guide.” Eternal Heart picks up where that book left off: with insights and inspiration how our hearts can guide us to the joyful life that emerges from the very love of God.
I’ll share more insights into the book over the months to come. In the meantime, if you would like to pre-order a copy, you can visit Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Christianbook.com, Indiebound.org or the publisher’s website and place your pre-order. Pre-orders are important: they help the publisher determine how many copies to print, and how big of a promotional push to give the book when it launches. So your pre-order makes a difference — thank you for doing so!
