Queering Contemplation: Finding Queerness in the Roots and Future of Contemplative Spirituality

by Cassidy Hall

What would it mean to queer contemplation? To disentangle contemplative spirituality from heteronormativity, patriarchy, and Eurocentricity, and instead engage with openness, curiosity, and a little weirdness? The world of contemplative Christianity has yielded to the same voices for far too long, many of whom are from centuries before our time, with lives unlike our own, and often from experiences disconnected from marginalization, oppression, and what it feels like to be an outsider. Cassidy Hall, an LGBTQIA+ Christian contemplative scholar and podcast host, takes us on a journey to queer the contemplative tradition. For Hall, queering is not solely about identifying as queer or applying queer theory; it is about what is gained by seeing things differently. "Queer," she says, "is the way I tilt my head to look at the world." As queerness reawakened her own contemplative life, Hall discovered that queering and questioning the tradition allowed her to listen more closely to voices that are queer, marginalized, and oppressed – voices that have long existed but have often been overlooked or silenced. For Hall, that also meant moving differently into contemplation, into silence, into liminality and ritual. In showing us the way, she helps us envision what contemplative faith can look like, what spiritual spaces we can reclaim for welcome – and how queering contemplation, and lifting up queer contemplative voices, frees us to seek the infinite possibility of our own identity and engage our spiritual lives with open hearts and open hands.  Whether you're queer or want to queer your own perspectives, or whether you want to uncover the queerness and queer voices in the contemplative tradition – Hall throws open the doors of contemplative spirituality for all, bringing us to contemplation in very new, sometimes old, but always queer ways.

Genres: Spirituality, Religion, LGBT, Nonfiction, Queer, Christianity

170 pages, Hardcover

Published May 21, 2024

Reviews

[ash | songsforafuturepoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was rather repetitive because of the length of the book. The first few chapters were valuable - Hall talks about the use of the term queerness and what it means to her, her own spiritual journey and coming to terms with the violent, homophobic, and patriarchal roots of Catholicism. Her take on spirituality and religion can potentially resonate with people of all faiths, and does try to pick at spiritual concepts and practices for a more expansive way to relate to spirituality. For someone who has no relationship to the Catholic church at all besides experiencing its relentless homophobia, I found myself taking to the faith and wanting to learn more.

The point seems a bit overdone by the fifth thing that one can 'queer'. That, and having 'queering [blank]' every couple of paragraphs had unfortunately put me off. Sample quote:

"In the liminal, no one knows precisely what the hell is going on. And in a way, that is profoundly queer - not because queerness is not something, but because queerness is more like everything that is loving, just, and liberative. By its very nature, the liminal space - having no set directions, no knowns, and no language - is queer."

The interesting thing is that I do appreciate that she said that, and I have seen this in my own life. After stepping into queerness I seem to hear the word 'liminal' a lot more - folks around me are familiar with queer time, feeling in limbo, being in between things, seeing and embodying the non-binary. I felt, however, the sentence stopped where it could have been meaningful. Why is queer associated with having no set directions? Are there examples of that? Why do we not know what is going on in a liminal space? What do you mean queerness is 'more like everything'?

And another one:

"Liminality is dynamic in its ability to hold so much. It is queer in its reach beyond and through binaries. It is full of imagination in the way it necessitates our considerations of something else."

What does that mean???

If you are fairly versed on spirituality and your own queerness, you may find that this has nothing much to add. It doesn't spark radical imagination like other queer texts, which have contributed a lot more to my own spirituality without having to use that word. I understand the book is particularly around contemplation - but I think spirituality is more expansive than that and I struggle to put into context how contemplation can fit into my queer sexuality, politics, lifestyle, culture, and community.

Maybe it's exactly the point of the book that I see contemplation, stillness, and boredom to be limiting, but my experience of the queerness mentioned in the book also seem to have shrunk. Queerness is present especially when we define ourselves against an Other (whether we like it or not). And because of that, I would have loved for a deeper reflection on how do we notice our queerness when we are by ourselves.

Thoughts welcome!

[A. J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came to me exactly when I needed it. Full review to come when I read it a second time.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I’ll want to return to many times. It had a lot to chew through, but never in a way that made it unapproachable. Cassidy Hall did a great job of interrogating long held practices both religious and cultural, and giving another way to look at it.

[Cam Scali · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ (dare I say?) this book laid out a surprisingly new and refreshing perspective on queerness, it was framed in so many ways I haven’t thought of/seen in other places. It also reflected on the individuality and uniqueness present in all of our relationships with nature and spiritual practices, but tells stories on how these experiences can help us improve our connection to others. Really just a big fan and walked away from this one with a lotttt to think about

“Queerness and silence remind each other that they are both places of infinite possibility. That we are places of infinite possibility.”

[Sadie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book represented a sewing together of pieces of myself. I appreciated Hall’s simultaneous humble and audacious voice. Community was weaved into the book through blurbs from interviews she had with other queer spiritual practitioners.

“My queerness resonated with these lessons from the monastic life: revelation lives in paradox; understanding, as opposed to knowing, thrives in unknowing; and welcomeness and belonging thrive in my continual becoming.”

[Racheal Kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cassidy Hall walks through a monastic journey of queerdom and provides a lens which can inspire any identity towards rediscovering and deepening understanding of self, spirituality, and relationships.

I started noting places where Hall describes queer or Christianity. I didn't think to do this until chapter 4, so none of the excerpts include the first sections of the book. I personally enjoyed reading the chapter on rituals and the parts about her niblings shedding light on the expansive lens queerness offers. I also enjoyed how Hall bookended the chapters beginning with flowers blooming and closing with desert imagery.

From this text, I was able to learn more about queerness and queer experience. It felt awkward to pick up the book and even more awkward to read it publicly (so I didn't!) which I think says a lot about how I am socialized and see the world! I do not identify as queer. Hall's text gave me new language to discuss experience, as wellas be able to hear a Christian perspective that is also a Queer persepctive. These are the quotes I pulled which I'm including for my own records, as I'm using Good Reads in this way!

I think one of the biggest questions I had while reading was: can I not hold these ambiguities while also not being queer? I think the answer is yes! So is queerness specific to queerness?? I think the answer is no! As I wonder if I have just disvalued and dismissed the entire queer identity by thinking such questions and that is not my intent in anyway:

"Queerness is an invitation into possibilities beyond what exists." 53

"Christian mysticism has consistently been a place of belonging for misfits, outcasts, and weirdos." 55

"Heternormativity and patriarchy regularly minimize queer life to one's sexual encounters..." 61

"Queerness in ritual is mischief and expectations." 67

"Theological discourse across such a wide gap tends to rely on apologetics assuming the need to defend the existence of LGBTQIA+ folks, and I no longer waste time on that." 70

"Queerness refuses to be a container and resists being told what to do." 73

"" If you want to strike water, you don't dig six 1-foot wells; you dig one 6-foot well.'l 77

"The phrase true self implies there is a 'false self.'l 100

"Through their curiosities and imagination, they interpret reality in ways that's provided daily reminders of just how queer the world really is." 111

Again, I found the text excellent and enjoyed Hall's presentation. I am reading a lot of spiritual discernment texts from a wide array of authors. I'm finding I personally prefer reading within fiction or nonfiction stories and do not enjoy reflective writing from authors. I want them to show me through a story! So I'm having trouble with all the texts in that way, and it's why I didn't give 5 stars. All the reflective books lack an interaction with other identities which I think enriches the perspectives... but! I did enjoy how Hall demonstrated a queering possibility from within traditional topics and spaces.

Then again, I also have found these reflective pieces offer a door to untether some of my own guilt and shame I've carried since I was an adolescent holding experiences within a traditional Christian culture carrying assumptions that place purity and the body in spaces that seem to bring holiness into our control through choice (and then I am left no choice except shame for my choices, but were they??); nothing about Christ's ministry and resurrection proclaim those kind of assumptions are within human's ability to maintain. In other words, I've been given narratives to hear me without ever having to speak and that's been welcomed. Hall's work offered this too. So 4.5 stars! 😜😎

[Trudie Barreras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cassidy Hall’s deeply profound and powerfully authentic “Queering Contemplation” is yet another of the growing number of writings to which I’ve been introduced by author Kittredge Cherry and her QSpirit blog. It is also another book which I hesitated to purchase due to my limited retirement budget, but was delighted to find my “points” on my account made the investment possible. Therefore, I was even more delighted to discover that I indeed resonate completely with the spiritual and practical insights Hill shares, as well as the background which decidedly parallels my own. She speaks of valuing silence and having an unrecognized “interior life” very much in tune with nature from her early childhood, and her reflections on this topic immediately prompted recollections of similar experiences of my own. Among the various authors she sites are Centering Prayer advocates Thomas Keating and Cynthia Bourgeault, and I have met both and read many of their books.

Another author whose writing also stimulated my growing interest in contemplation/meditation was Daniel Helminiak, whose landmark work “Meditation Without Myth” I read shortly after my initial encounter with Centering. Indeed, I actually began my practice of reviewing books as a result of a request by Helminiak that if I found his book meaningful, I could perhaps review it. In any event, again speaking of parallels, Hall and Helminiak, though with completely diverse writing styles and to some extent perspectives, both succeed in liberating the whole idea of contemplation from the mythos of “something only possible in the echelons of the most sanctified mystics” and make it clear that it is in fact a common and fruitful action of the Spirit, accessible to all.

Another very cogent area of discussion Hall engages is the difference between “loving” and “toxic” silence. She investigates this dichotomy after describing her experiences visiting numerous Trappist monasteries where, of course, the “rule of silence” is profoundly observed. When silence is chosen, it can indeed be blessed; where it is imposed, it may become the opposite, and where it is the result of inability or unwillingness to confront evil or injustice, it can become oppressive to the point of toxicity.

One additional comment; some potential readers might be put off by the use of the word “Queering” in the title. When I myself was first involved in the LGBT community back in the “early days” (1970’s on), I wasn’t happy with the idea of adding the “Q” to the acronym. Hill describes herself in her introduction as a “cisgender queer white woman”. I finally realize that about 10 years into that involvement of mine, I could in fact be similarly described. As a female in a fully-committed but open relationship with a bisexual male who self-identified as preferentially gay, but being neither lesbian nor asexual, what better term could I find than Queer? So I have claimed it for myself, although I frankly don’t use it in everyday conversation. But, as I said in the beginning, this is certainly part of why I resonate with this book, which has indeed stimulated many valuable insights of my own.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of the most interesting and thoughtful invitations I've read. I found myself describing it as deceptively smooth and polished, never quite reaching the gritty depths I so wanted but rather provoking the questions to lead me there myself. As a non-Christian and non-monotheistic reader, I found this book to be entirely compatible with interfaith perspectives and welcoming to dialog across religious traditions.

There were a few points of critique I'd levy, mostly around the allonormativity and amatonormativity absorbed into queerness (and mysticism). Asexuality is mentioned as a one-word second thought in places, while aromanticism goes entirely unspoken. Though on neither spectrum myself, I see this exclusion as fairly limiting for a text that centers around the spiritual limitlessness of queerness.

While these are avenues for further improvements in the field, I think this text serves as a really accessible and readable jumping-off point into queer religion and spirituality. I think Hall has done an admirable job here, and has provided a wonderful foundation for infinite future works based on her ideas. While not a perfect text, this is one with infinite possibility and potentiality, one I'd call a truly queer text.

[Sarah Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rev. Cassidy Hall’s new book is a pleasure to read (perhaps the most important thing about a book!). In itself it shows the fruits of queer spirituality, being well researched and accessible, challenging and tender, personal and expansive, intersectional without being appropriative. It’s a book about Queering and will enlighten any person to the potential fruits of approaching spirituality queerly. I am a straight, cis white woman and Hall tenderly called me into a vision of eternal exploration, wonder, and curiosity that is securely rooted in infinite Divine possibility. Rev. Hall clearly builds on, critically engages, and reinterprets the primarily cis, white, heteronormative contributions to contemplation and mysticism that has come before us, without reactively rejecting the mainstream tradition. Hall also intentionally and reverently expands this tradition, having grown and engaged the wisdom of Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous contemplatives, mystics, scholars, and activists through her own research and interviews on her podcasts. This is a must read for anyone interested in contemplation and mysticism!

[Jean Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a practitioner relatively new to contemplative prayer five years ago, I first became familiar with Cassidy Hall’s creative insights, balanced teaching and kindly perspectives on the podcast Encountering Silence. So I expected her first book Queering Contemplation to offer all that and more, including well-researched theology and well-written narrative. But I could not anticipate how much her alternative perspective, a “queer” way of reconsidering all aspects of practice that have been long overlooked and silenced, would allow me to engage deeper in understanding Christian teachings on social justice, mysticism and spirituality. Thanks to this book, I am no longer blind to my own biases nor limited to spiritual teachers among cys-gendered, white, males. Moving forward, I know my prayer explorations will benefit from this book as a reference, a deep storehouse of new teachers, texts and prompts for lectio divina. I highly recommend this book to anyone—queer or not queer--who wishes to move differently into contemplation, into silence, into liminality and ritual.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cassidy Hall offers an incredibly fresh perspective on Contemplation and the contemplative journey. I first met her through the writings of Thomas Merton and the International Thomas Merton Society. Her work with Merton’s writings immediately caught my eye, as did her Christian Century article “Maybe it’s time for me to let go of Thomas Merton” in December, 2021 was an invitation to reconsider how I was approaching Merton. However, with her book, “Queering Contemplation” she helped open my eyes to a new way of thinking about Contemplation, Merton, and so much more. I came away from her book feeling as though I had gotten to know more about myself. An unexpected gift was getting to know Cassidy on a deeper level as a spiritual guide and friend. Thank you, Cassidy, for the gift of your “playful, alive, and shy self.”

[Richard Edgar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting book. It's a look at contemplative spirituality through a queer lens, both in the sense used by LGBTQ+ folk, and also in the sense of wild, untamable, peculiar. I studied Merton and earlier contemplatives long ago, and apparently absorbed much of what they said into my spirituality without being all that aware of it. And then in middle age, realized I'm genderqueer or nonbinary, largely through a process of carefully listening to my own heart, and reading widely the things other people said about themselves. That listening to the silence is contemplative, and it's queer, and so this synthesis of the two is a welcome affirmation of things I was dimly aware of in my own life. It's one of those "so those are the words I've been groping for" kinds of moments.

[PJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

ok so... feel free to come for me here. to me, this didn't add quite enough to the contemplative canon besides the fact that it named that queer people can contemplate. I read this as part of a reading group and I felt the main purpose of this book was a kind of catharsis for queer people to see themselves within a contemplative context ... as a standalone book on contemplation, I think it falls short. as a queer person in largely post-queer environments, I fear the point of this book may be lost on me. it lacks the radical imagination of canonical works of queer theory and instead to me seems like a recontextualization of contemplation, rather than a total reconceptualization of the field. I think this book just restated what a lot of queer people have already been thinking re: spirituality and queerness.

[Cynthia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Queering is a verb meaning explore more widely, expand more openly, stretch into queer comfort zone. She criticizes Thomas Merton for responding in a letter to a gay man that he needs psychiatric care as a homosexual, but this was in the 1940s! She’s very critical of Christian tradition. She includes quotes from people of color from her own podcast to make the book more inclusive. But it seemed disjointed. Her writing was good. Challenging ideas. But the purpose is to keep growing- too self-referential. She does believe in the mystical and liminal, but it’s all subjective and relative. I miss Jesus and his Dad.

[Eric Riddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am very thankful for this book and the movies and podcasts that the author has produced. She pays respects to celebrated theologians such as Thomas Merton (the subject of her documentary “In Pursuit of Silence). The real strength of her book is introducing new voices into advancing contemplative practice that are not just cloistered white men.

I also appreciated her expansive definition of queerness and how she explores what queering means to her throughout the book. She writes, “I deeply believe queerness lives in every human in the ways we find ourselves subverting the status quo, forgoing norms, and engaging one another with open hearts and hands.”

[Delta M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5, generously rounded up - not for me in the slightest haha. glad to see a lot of the uplift of bipoc voices with quotes in this, but it reads very much like "omg my eyes are open to the Mystical and Magical essence of the world As It Is" and while I can appreciate a childlike wonder, a book full of white mystification is not what i was hoping for. also... words mean things 😭🥲 the stretching of "queer" to encompass all that the author insists it to cover makes it a functionally useless word by the end of the book.

[Thomas (Tom) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without question one of the best books I've read this year. I was intrigued by the title because of my interest in contemplation, queerness, and LGBTQIA+. Hall correctly and with great creativity, expands the use of the term, "queerness" to describe and explain the different aspects of contemplation within the spiritual journey. The text also helped me understand my personal sojourn as a queer theologian, person, and clergy. It is my intention to use Hall's text as the centerpiece for a capstone project in 2025.
This is a "must-read" for any persons in leadership.

[Colleen Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me longer than I wanted to to get to this book. But it seems to have fallen into my hands at just the right moment. I both lapped and chewed on the insights of the concept of queering contemplation and spirituality. This is a book that won’t soon leave me. Thoughtful, vulnerable, genuine and generous with her re-envisioning of what it means to navigate faith in queerness, Cassidy Hall has given us all a gift that stays around.

[Trey Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Self-knowledge is a necessary way-marker in the contemplative journey: it’s a sine qua non, really. Cassidy Hall’s extended testimony in this book — alongside those of a diverse pantheon of other contemplative folks — demonstrates that key accent or dimension in creative, self-searching way. I also liked her reflections on reclaiming boredom as contemplative practice.

[CindyGil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to go back for more. This book answers the question what does contemplation have to do with sexuality? I drew my own conclusions and am still learning.
It also has allowed me to expand my understanding of commonly used scriptural passages and stories related to theology as a result of reflection inspired by this book.

[Lauren Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book rearranged some things in me. Such a good read.

[Joshua Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learned a lot about queerness and about contemplation!

[Lisa Kemble · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m new to queer studies but appreciated this “head tilted” look at expanding paths into contemplative life, which has so often been dominated by white straight male perspectives and voices.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at the practice of contemplation—a disentangling and a reframing that invites the reader to view contemplation through something other than a Western, patriarchal, heteronormative lens. Hall approaches contemplation from new directions and through new eyes for me, opening up new facets and angles I hadn’t considered—or hadn’t considered in just that way before. I kept thinking of Emily Dickinson’s “tell it slant.” Hall’s focus is not necessarily on examining a queer experience of contemplation, but rather on queerness as a different stance, a different approach, engaging “openness, curiosity, and a little weirdness.” Another perspective-shifting, expansive read for my spiritual direction program.