Welcome to our “little cloister”
where we
EXPLORE MONASTIC WISDOM FOR EVERY DAY LIVING
Drs. Almut & Chuck with little one
Home of
+The Hildegard Seminar,
+Kierkegaard Masterclass,
+Bach Passionweek Consolations,
+The 12 Days of Christmas Contemplations &
+The “Little School” of Spiritual Formation
Some people like intellectual puzzles, some like to meditate on things spiritual, some like to share thoughtful conversations, some good food and wine. We love all these, and also meeting others who love the same.
We are seekers, world travelers, teachers, and learners. We believe the love of learning and the desire for God are part of the same journey. And that a monastic life style isn't only for monasteries but can be lived in the day to day life outside the monastery, too; even across denominations and religious identities, and as we just now learn, while parenting :-)
“The Love of Learning and the Desire for God”
Cloisterseminars.org is our child of heart. It started with seminars at monastic places and has grown into an online platform which hopes to provide a breathing space for fellow seekers
where we cultivate, deepen and share our interest in wisdom traditions and teachings across ages and continents
where we facilitate the dialogue between mind and heart, and
where we explore together how the contemplative life and contemplating life can sustain and replenish our soul's journey.
We love to have you on this journey!
Almut & Chuck
-- Steve Doughty, Greenville, SC
If you enjoy our readings and contemplations you can help making this ministry here at cloisterseminars.org sustainable. We are pouring many hours and many more dollars into providing this space. Because we are practicing a gift economy and give our gifts freely, we depend on YOU offering a gift in return. This will help us keeping our content free and our retreats accessible to all. Learn more about our Giving from Heart to Heart …
Almut Furchert, Ph.D. holds graduate degrees in philosophy of religion (Dr. phil.), psychology (Dipl. Psych.) and adult education from German universities and has worked as independent scholar, practitioner and retreat leader for many years. Almut is an expert on existential thought traditions (e.g. Kierkegaard, Buber, Jaspers, Frankl) and how they can help us to digg deeper into the quest for a deeper and truer self. She has also run a private practice in Germany for more than a decade and immersed herself in the last years in the studies of Hildegard of Bingen, introducing her magnificent work to student and adult learners alike. Almut is the founding director of cloisterseminars.org and creative force behind much of the content you find here.
I have grown up as third of five siblings in a pastor's home in a little East German village behind the Berlin Wall. So the urge to understand human struggle and facilitate healing has been with me for a long time. I also cherish freedom of thought -- philosophia (the love for wisdom) is after all a personal matter, it must help us to live our life well and to grow towards deeper understanding and wisdom. I enjoy traveling and photography and most of the photos on this site are mine. I love thoughtful conversation and reflection, but also laughter and leisure. I need lots of the latter...
Recently, I became an Oblate candidate at Saint Benedict's Monastery in MN. As a global citizen torn between continents, languages, cultures, and religious traditions, finding this spiritual home has been a great gift to me. Being able to share it with my companion and husband and since 2019 also with our baby girl has been one of the greatest adventures in my life.
I am looking forward to share some of this journey with you.
PS: To meet me for individual (online) consultation visit our Path Finder…
“Life must be understood backwards but lived forward...”
Chuck Huff, Ph.D. is a professor of social psychology at Saint Olaf College, MN, with extensive study in philosophy and religion. He loves to collect and draw pictures of data, to read the latest empirical research, and to connect it with themes of what it means to be human. He is an expert in the field of moral psychology and is especially interested in what makes people take (im)moral action. Chuck has been a Benedictine Oblate at Saint John's Abbey, MN for more than 20 years.
I am a son of the deep south in the USA, unaccountably married to a soul-mate from Germany. My religious background is best characterized as eclectic (if not downright discombobulated). I have at various times been Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian. In college, I was lured away from fundamentalism by reading C. S. Lewis, and in seminary, emancipated by studying Tillich. Though it sounds very cerebral, it really was all about how I should live my life. When I discovered Benedictine monasticism, I believe I found the way that fits with my peculiar makeup. As I have experienced it, Benedictine spirituality is not about right belief, but right practice. When people ask what "kind" of Christian I am, I now call myself a Benedictine.
For much of my life I have been longing to know God. And for much of my psychological career (30 years teaching so far), I have been fascinated by how and why people are moral. I now see these two things coming together as I read about the spirituality of the ancient monastic fathers and mothers in the deserts of Egypt (and Palestine, Syria, and Turkey). It is to these "abbas and ammas" that Benedict looked as he wrote his rule. Now I can see the love of learning and the desire for God coming together in my life as I learn about the ways of these ancient monastics (and their more modern descendants and relatives) and incorporate their wisdom into my personal searching. As I write here at cloisterseminars.org and do workshops and retreats, I invite you along on this journey. There is much we can learn from each other.
Did we mention that we love to travel (like here in Copenhagen) and to share spiced wine (not only) in winter?
are committed to an open minded search for a lived truth in a deeper self, and have made the Benedictine monastic tradition our spiritual home (while still cherishing our protestant, and ecumenical heritage and interfaith interests). We love to share our journey with Benedictine spirituality and other wisdom traditions, as we try to explore the active contemplative life in our teaching and writings, in workshops and retreats, and online here - with you.
We currently live in Minnesota, USA, and have just recently become parents to a lovely child we named Hannah :-)
If you like to consult with one of us please visit our consulting service on Path Finder or click above.
