In this episode Riley and Christopher welcome Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, “a licensed therapist who specializes in working with LDS couples on sexuality and relationship issues,” for a wide-ranging discussion of the Divine Feminine from an archetypal spiritual perspective. The discussion covers, among other things, the attributes of the Divine Feminine, their symbolic implications, the integration of the Divine Feminine, and its manifestation and significance in relationships.
Dec 30, 2021•1 hr 1 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley discuss perennial wisdom and why we should study and incorporate the foreign, yet familiar, truths of all traditions into our own understanding and practice. Within the Church, we have a common misconception that the “fullness of the gospel” found in the “only true and living church” (D&C 1:30) gives us a claim to comprehensive, exclusive truth from God. As Riley and Christopher demonstrate, prophets ancient, modern, and contemporary have not seen thing...
Dec 17, 2021•1 hr 2 min
In this episode Christopher and Riley introduce Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and the most accessible abridged translation of one of his most beloved works, The Alchemy of Happiness, itself an abridgment by al-Ghazali of his magnum opus, The Revival of the Religious Sciences. Known as “The Proof of Islam,” Al-Ghazali is the second most important figure in the Islamic tradition after the Prophet Muhammad, and the most important theologian and mystic of Islam. He is also an acknowledged intellectual influe...
Dec 10, 2021•50 min
In this episode Riley and Christopher are joined by Ben Peterson, co-host of Latter-day Peace Studies Presents: Come, Follow Me, for a conversation on how we read the scriptures and how that determines the meaning we get out of them. In the course of the conversation, they examine a few of the hermeneutics (i.e., ways of reading the scriptures) they have been using in their respective podcasts, and the exegesis (i.e., meaning) each hermeneutic produces. At the end of this episode, Christopher ma...
Dec 03, 2021•1 hr 10 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley trace the roots of the Logos of God, translated “Word” in John 1:1 in the New Testament, through the early Church fathers Clement of Alexandria and Justin Martyr to its roots in Ancient Greek Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus. In so doing, Christopher and Riley explore the meaning of the Logos of God in-depth, including in comparative religious perspective with the Hindu concept of Maya through the yogi Yogananda. Ultimately, Riley and Chris conclude with ...
Nov 26, 2021•1 hr 2 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley are joined by Latter-day Peace Studies and Latter-day Contemplation podcast co-founder, Shiloh Logan, to commemorate the podcast’s 50th installment. They look back on the genesis of the podcast, what it has taught them about the contemplative mindset, and express gratitude for those who have contributed to the emerging community of peace-loving disciples of Christ that Latter-day Peace Studies and Latter-day Contemplation has created. In the process, they t...
Nov 14, 2021•1 hr 6 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley talk about the need for a church. First, they refer to the Greek word in the Bible translated “church” and bring out its two simultaneously operative meanings. Next, they explore in-depth the need for a church based on those two meanings. Finally, they explore a threefold path one tends to take as a member of the body of Christ we call the church leading from dependence through participation to either disillusionment or leadership. But the leadership they d...
Nov 04, 2021•1 hr 4 min
What if you knew you were loved unconditionally? In this episode, Riley and guest host Shiloh Logan explore loving kindness. They discuss how it interfaces with Latter-day Saint theological constructs like Zion and degrees of glory, as well as the longstanding Christian call to disciples to nonviolence and detachment from outcomes. The calculus of transactional ROI in religious observance has become a distraction leading to burnout when expected outcomes don’t materialize. Conversely, the “might...
Oct 28, 2021•1 hr 2 min
In this episode, Riley and Christopher discuss the critical importance of mentors in our lives. In the process, they wander back and forth through the various benefits and risks inherent in the establishment of mentor/protégé relationships. At its core, mentoring is about teaching, but on a deeper, more personal level. Mentorships include expectations of both parties, involve bi-directional growth. Mentors can help us grow in all areas of our life, secular and spiritual. In particular, spiritual...
Oct 24, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Christopher and guest co-host Shiloh Logan talk about the power of the stories that we tell ourselves and the impact that they have on our lives. It has been said that “we don’t live in reality, but, rather, we live in our stories about reality .” What does this mean? Human beings are story and meaning-making entities. We are what makes meaning out of reality, and we do this through the stories that we create around and about events and ourselves. Stories are how we make sense of our world, and ...
Oct 17, 2021•1 hr 9 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley discuss being present to our values and how we spend our time. They reminisce about the 60-second TV spots “Family. Isn’t It About . . . Time?” (Remember those?) Using these TV spots as a springboard, they talk about the process of formulating values, the difference between the quantity of time and quality of time, and the importance of being present to our values and how we spend our time. Whatever our subjective judgments about which activities might help...
Oct 08, 2021•1 hr
“Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou have shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward you openly” (Matthew 6:6). “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it ...
Sep 30, 2021•1 hr 17 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley are joined by guest Daniel Meehan for a discussion contemplating symbols and their meanings. After a brief discussion defining symbols and meanings, they delve into a discussion of some symbols and meanings beginning at convention and culminating with invention. Dan demonstrates his devotional practice of definition, deconstruction, and reconstruction of symbols and meanings, following the wisdom pattern, as Richard Rohr, OFM calls it, of order, disorder, r...
Sep 23, 2021•56 min
Mysticism, properly understood, is a process or pursuit of divine oneness or communion with God. While that seems like a worthy aspiration, many can feel uncomfortable with mystical practices such as transcendental meditation. Mystics over the centuries have largely been misunderstood, characterized as heretical, or marginalized to protect orthodox authority. Indeed, Joseph Smith was treated similarly by religious leaders of his time; and yet today within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day...
Sep 19, 2021•1 hr
In this episode, Christopher and Riley contemplate good and evil from the loss of paradise in the duality of the fall to the regaining of paradise in a return to unity in the mystery of the conjunction of opposites and the sacred marriage of heaven and earth. In the course of the conversation, Riley and Christopher ponder the problem of evil postulated by Epicurus and the theodicies, or solutions to this problem, offered by philosophers and theologians from antiquity to modernity, and thus the p...
Sep 09, 2021•55 min
In this episode, Riley and Christopher take on the topic of resurrection. Is resurrection something that happens after we do, or do we need to be resurrected before we die? What would it look like to be resurrected before we die and what does a resurrected life in Christ look like? Christopher and Riley answer these questions and related questions about spiritual death and life with New Testament and extracanonical scriptures from the Gnostics, touching on the ordinances of baptism and the Sacra...
Sep 03, 2021•1 hr 5 min
The language of the sacred is often poetic, rather than propositional. It speaks of feelings, not facts. The fact is, any experience of the sacred is inexpressible in propositional terms. It should come as no surprise then that many of the sacred texts of the world’s religions are in poetry, not prose: the Hindu Vedas, Upanishads, Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, and Ramayana; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezequiel, the twelve minor prophets, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon and the Book ...
Aug 27, 2021•1 hr 13 min
In this episode, Riley welcomes guest co-host Shiloh Logan to talk about the modality and usefulness of the Word of Wisdom as a contemplative tool. They go into the history of the revelation and its subsequent modified orthodox adoption as a commandment under Heber J. Grant in order to deconstruct the popular understanding that what we read in Section 89 is God’s law of health. While the Word of Wisdom may be the result of a culturally infused, early 19th-century zeitgeist, it nevertheless repre...
Aug 20, 2021•1 hr 8 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley explore revelation. What is revelation? Who can receive it? Is it something only prophets can receive? Can we? Is revelation infallible if prophets receive it? How about if we do? Has it ceased or is it continuing? If it has ceased, how do we know we’re interpreting it correctly? Wouldn’t that take revelation too, or does reason suffice? If revelation is continuing, can earlier revelation be abrogated by later revelation? Has this ever happened? If so, does...
Aug 05, 2021•59 min
Latter-day prophet David O. McKay described meditation as the “most secret, most sacred door through which we pass into the presence of the Lord” yet few Latter-day Saints have a regular meditation practice. In General Conference addresses, meditation usually receives, at best, passing mention as a synonym of prayer or pondering. We’d like to see that change. In this episode Christopher and Riley describe their respective meditation practices, give some advice on establishing a practice of your ...
Jul 30, 2021•57 min
In this episode, Riley interviews Christopher on his journaling practice. Christopher keeps seven different journals, including a Morning Pages journal inspired by Julia Cameron, a templated journal inspired by Michael Hyatt, a Five Minute Journal, a feelings journal, a food journal, a reading journal, and even a garbage journal. Each one of these serves a unique contemplative purpose for Christopher. Riley asks Christopher probing questions about journaling, some of which were submitted in adva...
Jul 23, 2021•1 hr 5 min
On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon were studying John 5, and while they “meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about” (D&C 76:19). This vision and the way of understanding Heaven it revealed, and which we now refer to as “the three degrees of glory,” was the result of Joseph and Sidney’s experience of Lectio Divina (Divine Reading) of John 5. In this episode Riley and Chr...
Jul 15, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Following US Independence Day with all of its pomp and circumstance, Christopher and Riley raise the question of whether America is a Christian nation. They recount America’s history of subjugation, displacement, and slavery; episodes in US history that do not embody the Christian ideals expressed in its Declaration of Independence and in its Constitution vis-à-vis the stories of Americans that have struggled against power for those Christian ideals. They then walk listeners through a contemplat...
Jul 08, 2021•52 min
In this episode, Christopher and Riley discuss the contemplative practice of fasting. Beginning with the usual notion of fasting as abstaining from food and drink, they expand it to include abstaining from any appetite with the potential to be taken to excess or to become an unhealthy coping mechanism or even an addiction for lack of communion with God. Riley and Christopher describe indulgence in excess as a way we try to fill the emptiness in us resulting from a lack of communion with God, wit...
Jul 02, 2021•57 min
In this episode, Riley and Christopher tackle the question of the actionability of Christian contemplation, given the fact that it is often misunderstood as mere navel gazing. In the spirit of the saying of the great Sufi, Algazel, who wrote that, “Knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity,” Christopher and Riley make a case for the conjunction of contemplation and action as each side of this seeming pair of opposites is incomplete without the other.
Jun 24, 2021•48 min
Christopher and guest co-host Shiloh Logan talk about the idea of divine unconditional love. There is some religious controversy over what God’s “unconditional love” means. It has come to mean many things to many people, and there is no congruent doctrine from LDS Church leaders concerning the phrase. For as many statements come against unconditional love, there are more things said in favor of it from LDS General authorities and church leaders. But what are we to do about this? Is God unconditi...
Jun 17, 2021•1 hr
Christopher talks with guest co-host Shiloh Logan about the final Beatitude on persecution. The Beatitudes are understood as a story that starts with the poverty of spirit (i.e., the emptying) and concludes with a blessing upon the persecuted. But what is persecution? Emerson recognized, in at least one sense, the difficulty in identifying real persecution when he pleaded, “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” Mere or proactive d...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, Riley and Christopher explore the unseen world—the realm of all that which we cannot see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, but which is real—including unseen metaphysical realities and epistemological or socially constructed ones. Some of the most significant realities that form part of a fully human experience, from love—an unseen but metaphysical reality—to marriage—an epistemological but every-much-as-real one, are part of the unseen world. While science only deals with what can...
Jun 04, 2021•1 hr
In this episode Christopher and Riley discuss the Stoic and Christian spiritual exercise of memento mori (remember you must die). Contrary to the macabre idea of an anxious dwelling upon death, memento mori can be a useful tool to help us live fuller lives of integrity, gratitude, and joy. We hope this message brings you a sense of peace and equanimity, and helps you appreciate the beauty of a purposeful life.
May 27, 2021•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, Riley and Christopher explore the promise to peacemakers in the Beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9), with guest, Lindsey Ohlin, co-founder of Latter-day Peace Studies. Lindsey shares her transition from politics to peace, how she was able to find her “true self” as a daughter of God, and what that realization has meant to her. Lindsey, Christopher, and Riley discuss what it means to “see God” in themselves and in th...
May 20, 2021•1 hr 6 min
