Workshop Details

The meeting between different faith and wisdom traditions is one of the great gifts and opportunities of our times, allowing at best for an enrichment of our lives and a deeper understanding of our place and purpose in the cosmos. In celebrating what is now possible, though, we can perhaps forget that conversations, exchanges, the sharing of practices and the melding of different worldviews have occurred in various ways throughout recorded history.  One particularly fruitful area is that occupied by Christian and Sufi philosophers, mystics, and spiritual seekers.

In the course offered here we will look at the beginnings, and some of the key figures, in Christian and Sufi traditions.  This is a vast area.  Some of us last year joined in a conversation between Rumi and St John of the Cross, and that small beginning has led to a wish for more extended consideration, particularly in understanding the nature of love, its blessings and its demands.  The opening of the mind and heart of love will be our guiding thread.

The course will draw particularly on our contemplative experience, insofar as this is focussed in chosen writings, especially poetry, and in meditative practice. In outline we will consider:

1. The worldview and spiritual path of Jesus
2. Responding to the divine in the Qur’an
3. St Ephrem the Syrian (306-373): the poetic theology of an Eastern Christian
4. Rabia al-Adawiyya (717-801), a prominent female mystic in early Islam
5. Evagrius Ponticus (Evagrius the Solitary) (345-399) foremost writer on prayer and meditation within the tradition of the mothers and fathers of the desert
6. Al Junayd (830-910), leading Sufi teacher and mystic in medieval Baghdad
7. Pseudo-Dionysius (Denis the Areopagite), fifth century Syrian monk and neo-Platonist theologian
8. Al Hallaj (858-922), Sufi mystic martyred for proclaiming his identity with the divine, “I am the Truth (al-Haqq)”

The course will begin in early October, meeting fortnightly on Saturdays for 1hr 30 mins, with four sessions before Christmas and four sessions in the new year.

Numbers will be limited so please reserve a place if you are interested. Please note: attendance for the whole course will be expected, with room for flexibility if other significant commitments arise.

There will be two groups covering the same material: Group A meeting 10.00am-11.30am UK time, and Group B (timed in particular to allow for attendees from North America) meeting 5.00pm-6.30pm (UK Time). Please find the relevant time for your time zone to join the sessions from November onwards.

Group A meeting: Oct 11th, Oct 25th, Nov 8th, Nov 22nd, Jan 10th, Jan 24th, Feb 7th, Feb 21st

Group B meeting: Nov 1st, Nov 15th, Nov 29th, Jan 17th, Jan 31st, Feb 14th, Feb 28th, March 14th.