Buddhist mindfulness has gone mainstream, but not many people have heard of prosoche. That’s the ancient Greek word for attention, awareness, openness to everything, inner and outer alike. The Christian monks and nuns who resided in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor around 300 CE made prosoche a way of living. For Douglas Christie, a scholar of Christian contemplative practices, these desert fathers and mothers model an attunement and receptivity that is badly needed today.

Along with researching early Christianity, Christie has immersed himself in the writings of naturalists like Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Mary Austin, and Linda Hogan. His 2012 book The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology highlights points of intersection between nineteenth- and twentieth-century students of nature and third- and fourth-century Christian contemplatives. It also includes anecdotes about Christie’s personal efforts to establish a more “sympathetic participation” in the world. Though he was raised Roman Catholic and continues to identify with that denomination, he credits nature as much as religion for showing him, as an adult, how to be still, to listen in silence, and to pray.