Autumn Years: Taking the Contemplative Path

This is a beginner’s guide to contemplation for anyone in the second half of life and also a love story. Autumn Years describes the practice of contemplation as part of a strategy of successful aging. Recognizing that there is no single contemplative path, it includes: sitting meditation, centering prayer, walking meditation, and loving-kindness meditation. It also looks at other practices as well: yoga, lectio divina, koan study, music meditation, dream work, and even travel as pilgrimage.

’Shows that marriage is as much a spiritual journey as monasticism... youth only the beginning of the human exploration of wonder, divine passion, and holiness.’ Laurence Freeman, O.S.B., director of the World Community of Christian Meditation

Robert H. King, a graduate of Harvard and Yale, was professor of philosophy and religion at Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi, where he was also academic dean. His most recent book is Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh: Engaged Spirituality in an Age of Globalization. He and Elizabeth live in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. Elizabeth M. King is the author of seven books, published under the name Marilyn Morgan Hellenberg, and over 500 poems, articles, and stories, published in more than two dozen magazines from Commonweal, Guideposts, and The Living Church to Parents’ Magazine, Reader’s Digest, and the Upper Room. Her book God’s Best for You sold over one hundred thousand copies in its Guidepost edition (1988).