What does contemplation have to do with the everyday life of faith? And why does it matter now?
Words like stillness, centering prayer, silence, meditation, attention, and contemplation were finding renewed resonance in Christian conversation. But what did they actually mean—and what did they mean for the rest of us? In this interactive online event, Ron Dart explored how the contemplative path is not a spiritual luxury for the few, but a vital calling for the many—a way of seeing, praying, and being that Evelyn Underhill might have called “the education of the whole person.”
Ron introduced Underhill, one of Christianity’s most respected guides to the inner life, and reflected on her wisdom for our anxious and noisy age. Drawing from her writings, he unpacked why contemplation is not only personal but communal—not withdrawal from the world, but a way to be more deeply present in it. The event also touched on common misconceptions surrounding mysticism and why Underhill’s voice remains culturally subversive in the best sense of the word.
Following Ron’s presentation, there was time for audience Q&A. Known for his clarity, depth, and kindness, Ron brought big ideas to life in ways that were refreshingly accessible.
Ron Dart has taught in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley (BC) since 1990. A former staff member with Amnesty International, Ron has published 42 books, including The North American High Tory Tradition and The Scholar Gipsy: Thrownness, Memoricide, and the Great Tradition (2024). Other titles include The Gospel According to Hermes (2021), Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson (2020), and Hermann Hesse: Phoenix Arising (2019). Ron also teaches in the graduate program at St. Stephen’s University, where he is scheduled to offer a course on Dante’s Commedia in summer 2025. He serves on the National Executive of the Thomas Merton Society and is the Canadian contact for the Evelyn Underhill Society and the Bede Griffiths Sangha.
Names mentioned:
Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, Rabindranath Tagore, Kabir, Baron Friedrich von Hügel, Robin Wrigley Carr, Dante Alighieri, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Rowan Williams, Timothy Ware, Ronald Rolheiser, Dallas Willard, Sister Wendy Beckett, Robert Ellsberg, Maximus the Confessor, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Cicero, Seneca, Simone Weil, Dorothy Day, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Charles Williams, Martin Buber, Eugene Peterson, George MacDonald, Arthur Michael Ramsey, Leo Tolstoy, Aeschylus, William Shakespeare, Homer, Daniel Ellsberg, Richard Rohr, Ruth Burrows.
Books/works mentioned:
Mysticism (Evelyn Underhill)
The Spiritual Life (Evelyn Underhill)
Worship (Evelyn Underhill)
The Grey World (Evelyn Underhill)
The Essentials of Mysticism (Evelyn Underhill)
The School of Charity (Evelyn Underhill)
Abba (Evelyn Underhill)
Space Trilogy (C.S. Lewis)
Four Quartets (T.S. Eliot)
The Letters of Evelyn Underhill (Charles Williams, ed.)
Gitanjali (Rabindranath Tagore)
New Seeds of Contemplation (Thomas Merton)
The Orthodox Church (Timothy Ware)
I and Thou (Martin Buber)
The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)
Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle; Books 8–9 on friendship)
The Seven Storey Mountain (Thomas Merton)
The Beatitudes: When Mountain Meets Valley (Ron Dart)
The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill (Robyn Wrigley-Car)
Dearest Sister Wendy (Robert Ellsberg and Sister Wendy Beckett)
“Evelyn Underhill and the Christian Social Movement” (Jessica L. Malay)