Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation

by Adam Bucko

A moving collection of reflections, stories and practices from the life and experiences of Father Adam Bucko—interreligious pioneer, new monastic leader, priest, spiritual director, and activist. They are designed for every person trying to live at the intersection of contemplation and justice.

Written against the backdrop of the COVID 19 pandemic and America’s reckoning with growing poverty, injustice and systemic racism, Let Your Heartbreak be your Guide is uniquely positioned to accompany readers through the disillusionment and violence of these times. Father Adam writes from the heart, offering practical guidance on how to adopt an “engaged contemplation,” a lived spirituality responsive to suffering and injustice.

The book is divided into three Listening to Life, Touching What Frightens Us, and Interrupting Silence. Each chapter offers readers an invitation to pay attention to God who is eager to accompany us through our challenges and hopes. Throughout, Father Adam invites readers to draw from his rich personal experiences, beginning with his youth in Poland where he witnessed courageous priests use nonviolence to fight a totalitarian system, to his work with homeless LGBTQ youth on the streets of NYC, to his interactions with interfaith communities across the globe. Alongside these diverse experiences, Father Adam weaves in wisdom gained from mentors, scripture, and spiritual activists and mystics, such as St. Teresa of Avila, Howard Thurman, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Catherine Doherty and Thich Nhat Hanh.

The book ends with a powerful roadmap for individuals and communities looking to integrate a “rule of life” in service of compassion and justice for all. The book also includes an appendix of contemplative practices to help readers develop discernment, courage, and receptivity to God who is always guiding us towards healing and liberation.

Genres: Spirituality, Faith, Theology

160 pages, Paperback

Published October 6, 2022

Reviews

[Jon Turney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who talks about Bear Heart and Thich Nhat Hanh already has my interests peaked. What a refreshing book on contemplative spirituality. I cannot recommend this book more. Pick up a copy today. You will not be disappointed.

[John Muntges · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

Deeply moving and insightful. Down to earth guidance on opening ourselves to God’s love and regifting that love to the persons who enter our lives each day.

[Lucy G. DE Llaguno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revolucionario. ¿Qué rompe mi corazón? ¡Vaya pregunta! No le preguntes a la cabeza sino al corazón. Porque el corazón es otro lugar, otro órgano de percepción y aunque su lenguaje es anterior a las palabras, su decir se había quedado en el fondo, muy en el fondo de mi pensamiento así que casi no podía oír, menos escuchar. El libro es una invitación a ver y ser en el mundo desde la experiencia del corazón.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bucko is a bridge between traditional religion and new forms of community, between Christianity and interspirituality. As more and more of us find ourselves in this chasm, his book can offer a way to more deeply understand and more expansively envision what the changes today can mean for the future of our churches, communities, and world.

[Pat Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I have read on contemplation and , justice and compassion. Adam Bucko recently was a presenter on Bede Griffin in a course I took about Modern Mystics. He was extremely interesting and knowledgeable.

[Heidi Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many pages are dog-eared for my own continued prayer and reflection and to use with my students.

[Meri McCoy-Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots to contemplate from this little book.