“May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be at ease.” — Karaniya Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipāta 1.8)
Most people today have not heard of St. Isaac the Syrian. He lived in the seventh century as part of the Syriac Christian tradition. After a short time as a bishop, he became known for his life of solitude and prayer.
Like other great mystics, Isaac did not want to limit our idea of God. He believed that as we draw closer to divine love, our own ability to love grows as well.
For Isaac, holiness was not measured by how much suffering a person could endure. It was measured by how much compassion a person could hold.
He wrote:
“What is a merciful heart? It is a heart burning for the sake of the whole of creation: for people, for birds, for animals, and for every created thing.”1
A heart that cares deeply for all of creation is a powerful image.
Isaac saw mercy as much more than just being kind to people like ourselves. A merciful heart does not only react to suffering. It starts to see the world in a new way, where the lines between our own lives and the lives around us become less clear.
The suffering of another creature is no longer someone else’s problem.
The beauty of another life is no longer something separate from our own.
The heart expands.
Today, many things push us to care less about others. We are often taught to focus on what is ours, to protect our own interests, and to only feel responsible for what affects us directly.
But mystics have always questioned this way of thinking. They remind us that love grows stronger and more whole as it reaches out to others.
Across Buddhist traditions the practice of karuṇā names a different but resonant path toward compassion to all living beings.2 The Buddhist path starts by recognizing that everyone suffers, and that true understanding comes when we see that we are not truly separate from each other.
Isaac and Buddhist teachers have different backgrounds and beliefs about the world. Still, both encourage us to grow spiritually by caring about more than just ourselves.
Who have we decided is outside the circle?
Which lives do we overlook because they are unfamiliar, inconvenient, or distant?
What changes when we see the world not as separate beings competing, but as a network of relationships that deserve our care?
Isaac’s vision is hard for us today because we have become very good at deciding what is important and what is not.
We often judge things by how useful they are. We split the world into resources and users. We choose which suffering to notice and which to ignore.
A merciful heart starts in a different place. It starts with wonder. It starts by seeing that every living thing is part of a greater mystery. It starts with being thankful for the amazing gift of existence.
Maybe this is what Isaac found in the desert. Being alone does not make the heart smaller. Real solitude can make the heart bigger because it takes away the walls that stop us from seeing how we are connected to everything.
The goal of spiritual life is not to escape the world.
It is to learn how to love the world more fully.
A merciful heart is not a heart that seeks suffering.
It is a heart that can no longer ignore the suffering and beauty of the world.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
Where have you noticed your circle of compassion expanding?
What lives—human or more-than-human—are easiest for you to overlook?
What practices help you cultivate a heart that is more open to the suffering, beauty, and mystery of creation?
A Prayer for the Day
A Prayer For Wisdom Beyond Our Power
Merciful One, Expand our hearts. Where we have made the world smaller, teach us to see more deeply. Where we have grown numb, awaken our tenderness. Where we have forgotten our kinship with the living world, restore our sense of belonging. Give us a heart that notices. A heart that grieves without despair. A heart that rejoices in the beauty around us. May we learn the mercy that Isaac knew— a love wide enough to embrace people and creatures, the familiar and the unknown, the fragile and the flourishing. May our compassion become a blessing to the world you have entrusted to us. Amen.
Spiritual Practice
Widen the Circle
Today, choose one living thing you usually pass by without noticing.
It might be a tree, a bird, an animal, a stranger, or a place in your neighborhood.
Pause long enough to pay attention.
Offer a simple acknowledgment: “You are part of this world with me.”
Notice what changes when you practice seeing rather than passing by.
A merciful heart begins with attention. Love begins when we learn to notice what we once ignored.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
My team and I launched a new experiment we are calling “The Commons.” It’s an online space centered around communities of practice: groups of people who share a common concern, set of problems, or passion for a topic, and deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. Join the community here.
July 28 - September 1, 2026, 12:30-1:30pmET - Book Club in The Commons - FREE - We are reading our next book, “I Eat The Stars” by Sarah Wilson. We will meet each Tuesday for 6 weeks. It’s such great fun. I hope you will be a part. All are welcome! RSVP HERE.
August 6, 2026, 7-8pm ET - FREE EVENT - Join me in conversation with Rev. Natalia Terfa about her new book, “It All Counts: Finding God Beyond the Boundaries.” What if the moments you’ve been taught don’t “count” spiritually are actually where God is waiting to be found? Many of us were handed a version of faith that divided life into sacred and secular, holy and ordinary, faithful and doubtful. But what if those boundaries were never real? Whether you’ve left church, stayed in it, or find yourself somewhere in between, this conversation will offer fresh language for a faith that is expansive, embodied, and deeply human. REGISTER HERE.
September 8, 2026, 7-9pm ET, ONLINE EVENT - I’ll be hosting a powerful online gathering on The Black Madonna: Sacred Wisdom for a World in Crisis with Matthew Fox, Alessandra Belloni, and Christena Cleveland. We will explore the Black Madonna as a symbol of resilience, liberation, sacred feminine wisdom, and healing in a fractured world through conversation, story, music, and spiritual reflection. If you feel drawn toward a deeper encounter with the Divine Feminine and the ancient traditions that continue to nourish movements for justice and wholeness, I hope you’ll join us. Learn more and REGISTER HERE.
October 6, 2026 - 7-8:30pm ET, ONLINE EVENT - Matthew Fox and I are teaming up again to launch a series called Journeying with the Mystics. The mystics have always emerged in times of uncertainty. They appear when old certainties are crumbling, when institutions no longer provide easy answers, and when people find themselves longing for a deeper experience of the Sacred. Join us for an 18-session exploration of the teachings of St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Hildegard of Bingen, Kabir and Rumi, Meister Eckhart and more. This is more than a lecture series. It is an invitation into a living spiritual journey. REGISTRATION COMING SOON!
October 18-21, 2026 - PREACH! 2026 Conference- I’ll be co-hosting PREACH in Minneapolis with Church Anew, a new gathering for preachers, storytellers, worship leaders, and spiritual communicators navigating what it means to speak with clarity, compassion, and courage in a changing world. If you’ve sensed that the preaching moment has changed and are longing for thoughtful community and renewed imagination for this work, I hope you’ll join us.
I drafted a Strategic Framework for Congregations as we move into the coming years of increased authoritarianism around the world. If interested, you can download it here.
Fun Things My Friends Are Up To…
I get to work with such amazing, creative people. This section is my way of celebrating them—no paid promotions, just joy in what they’re creating.
Dr. Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny, has publicly released the first lecture of a ten-lecture course he taught at the University of Toronto this past year. The course is called “Hitler and Stalin Today.” He is offering this as a public resource for students, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding the relationship between history and contemporary democracy. Follow his posts here or watch on YouTube.
July 23, 2026, 2-3:00pm ET, Join Rev. Lisa Bryant for a six-session community of practice called “Imagining God with Julian of Norwich” inspired by Julian of Norwich’s The Showings, in Mirabai Starr’s vivid and accessible translation. Together, we will encounter Julian’s remarkable vision of divine love and explore what her wisdom might awaken in our own lives, spiritual practices, and understanding of God. You can learn more and sign up here.
July 29, 2026, 12pm ET - ONLINE WRITING GROUP - My dear friend, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, is leading a writing group open to all. This is a simple and spacious writing circle for people who want time to listen inwardly and put words on the page without overthinking, performing, or polishing. Meryl offers a prompt designed to invite reflection, imagination, and attunement to what is already alive within you. The practice honors writing as a way of listening, of letting images, memories, questions, and insights surface in their own time. Learn more here.
My friends over at Spiritual Wanderlust have some of the coolest classes. One I am particularly drawn to is their Celtic Spirituality School where you get to learn from people like John Philip Newell, Ilia Delio, Carl McColman, Sharon Blackie, and more. Read more about their program.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
Isaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, Homily 81, trans. Dana Miller (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1984), pp. 371–372.
The Karaniya Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipāta 1.8), in The Sutta Nipāta: An Ancient Collection of the Buddha’s Discourses Together with Its Commentaries, trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017).
I think of Malvina Reynolds's wonderful song, Magic Penny: "Love is something, if you give it away, give it away, give it away, love is something, if you give it away, you end up having more. It's just like a magic penny: hold it tight and you won't have any. Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many, they'll roll all over the floor! Love is something, if you give it away, give it away, give it away, love is something, if you give it away, you end up having more. So let's go dancing till the end of day, and if there's a piper, we can pay! For love is something, if you give it away, you end up having more!"
…just like many indigenous people have the tradition of going into loneliness, often surrounded by nature …