About
A small site about the practice of Jesus
A guide to the fasting, prayer, and stillness that Jesus lived and taught, and to the mind those practices open, which the tradition has called the mind of Christ.
Who it is for
Two kinds of people, mostly. Christians who have the story and the beliefs but have never been shown the practice, and who sense that Jesus did something with his mornings that they have not been taught to do. And people of no particular religion who are drawn to Jesus as a teacher of a way of being, and want to walk it without first having to sign anything.
The site tries to speak to both at once, which is difficult, and it does so by staying close to the gospels and to what the contemplative tradition has always done with them. It does not argue theology. It describes a road and how to walk it.
How it reads the gospels
Plainly, and for practice. When Jesus says when you fast, this site assumes he meant it. When he says the kingdom of God is within you, it assumes he meant that too, and that the point of fasting, prayer, and stillness is to notice what he said was already there. This is what the desert fathers and mothers, the hesychasts, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, and Thomas Keating were all doing, in their different centuries. The phrase Christ consciousness is newer than any of them; the thing it names is not.
Where the words come from
Scripture is quoted from, or lightly adapted for reading aloud from, the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. The commentaries, reflections, and practices are original to this site. The forty-day structure is built on the wilderness fast of Matthew 4 and the ancient Lenten pattern; the fasting ladder draws on the practice of the early church and the Didache; the prayer chapter on the Jesus Prayer, lectio divina, and the Ignatian examen; the stillness chapter on The Cloud of Unknowing and the centering prayer of Keating, Pennington, and Meninger.
A word about the body
Nothing here is medical advice. Fasting changes your body, and for some people it is not safe. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, under eighteen, underweight, diabetic or on medication that affects blood sugar, on any medication that must be taken with food, or if you have any history of disordered eating, please talk with a clinician before you fast, and consider the Daniel fast, which is a fast from richness rather than from food. The goal of every practice on this site is a quiet body, not a punished one. If a practice is hurting you, stop it.
No account, no tracking
Your journey progress and your fasting clock are stored only in your own browser. There is no account, no analytics, and nothing is sent anywhere. Clear your browser data and it is gone; that is by design.
Begin
Read The Way, then the four practice chapters. Then, tomorrow morning, before the light, Day 1.