“Engaged Mysticism and Cultural Renewal”: A Conversation With Rev. Dr. Aizaiah G. Yong, Ph.d.

Over the phone, Rev. Dr. Aizaiah G. Yong, Ph.D., speaks with a quiet intensity that carries across the line. A pentecostal minister ordained with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and with strong ties to the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries (TFAM). His background weaves deep ecumenical, intercultural, and interreligious commitments, as he has spent the past fifteen years bridging organizational leadership, public theology, psychospiritual care, and international public speaking. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minnesota, a residential research center at the intersections of faith and culture.

Our conversation began with his reflections on The Monk Within by Beverly Lanzetta, a book exploring the “new monk”—someone seeking contemplative and spiritual depth in ordinary life.

“To be in that solidarity with others,” Yong begins, “where all life is at the table together, co-creating it. The ‘monk within’ is less about a role and more about a way of being. It invites us to live from what is most central, what is most important.”

Yong describes his own practice as a form of modern monastic sensibilities, cultivated outside the vows of traditional religious life. “My partner of sixteen years and I are caregivers. We are learning together, including from and with our children. In my work— we are creating spaces for wisdom to flow, engaging with leaders across educational and intercultural contexts. I see my vocation as inviting a touchpoint with the monk within all of us. That place of concern, confidence, and inner belonging—it cannot be diminished or destroyed. Always beckoning us to go deeper.”

Living from that contemplative center is not without its challenges. Yong wrestles with being “in the world” as a practitioner and scholar of spirituality. He draws from examples of contemplative figures, including Saint Benedict of Nursia. “Our research takes place on Benedictine monastery grounds,” he explains. “The life there is structured around two dimensions: prayer and work. The labor of hands and the discipline of prayer and community are inseparable. It’s about cultivate a life of intentionally, [to live] in a way that is not fragmented or divided.”

He emphasizes the importance of simplicity and singleness of heart amid the constant distractions of modern life. “There is so much energy out there; it’s easy to lose ourselves. The question is: How do we stay grounded in our own presence and share that with others? That’s why the ancient monastics went to the desert—to reconnect. How can we live that way every day?”

Yong brings his reflections into contemporary engagement with society’s problems: for example showing up at a protest. “When we show up in a protest, it’s about being sincere and holistic in our presence. Living from the monk within means showing up with one’s fullness of heart and being, not just physically, but spiritually and ethically. It is a challenge, but it is also an invitation that can shape the world.”

In The Showings, as rendered by Mirabai Starr, Julian of Norwich emerges as a mystic of radical tenderness—one who encounters divine love in the midst of plague, social upheaval, and personal suffering. Starr’s translation highlights Julian’s intimate, embodied language of God, including maternal imagery and her steady insistence that love is the deepest truth beneath catastrophe.

For Yong, the question of holding together suffering and divine intimacy is deeply personal. “It is certainly an important question,” he says. “There is no final answer. But I can speak from experience.”

He recalls a near-death experience in 2018, when a severe motorcycle accident left him unable to walk and required a sixteen-hour surgery. “I had been enduring eight days of excruciating pain, forced fasting, and constant uncertainty. I had just become a parent again. My suffering was not just physical, it was psychological and spiritual. I carried shame, fear, and regret for the ways I had fallen short as a parent and as a human being. And yet, in that state, I was met by Jesus.”

Yong recounts an ecstatic vision (detailed more in his book Trauma and Renewal: Toward Spiritual, Communal, and Holistic Transformation (Orbis Books, 2025)—a where he encounted Jesus Christ in a simple yet transformative way. “He put his hands on my wounded leg. There were no words. The touch itself was warmth, healing, boundless compassion. I could feel the physical transformation, but even more, the relational one. I was not judged for my flaws. He was not rescuing me; he was simply with me. That presence—the compassion, the care, the mutuality—was who I encounted in Jesus during that surgery. I was seen and known and embraced in the fullness of my exposure.”

This experience resonates with the teachings of James Finley in The Healing Path, which draws on the Christian contemplative tradition—especially Thomas Merton—to show how divine compassion meets us precisely in our trauma. “I met Finley and had the chance to pray with his weekly meditation group and thank him for his life and ministry,” Yong says. “His work shaped my thinking about contemplative pedagogy and pastoral care. Mystical awareness, at its core, is a sense of unity with the whole of reality. That can sound spectacular, but it also emerges in simple moments: watching the sunrise over an icy lake, an embrace with a beloved, making art, or letting a poem or story unfold. Sometimes we are moved deeply; sometimes we are unsure. We are on a continuum. This connectedness is where mystical awareness resides, not just in the highs, but through the lows too.”

Yong explains how this mystical awareness can support psychological healing. “It provides a sense of confidence, a place where self-loathing can be met with welcome. Whatever happens, we can bring wisdom to it. All that happens to us is part of life’s care. Having a friend, spiritual director, or therapist can help ground us, so we are not swept away, so we can be present and not enmeshed in trauma. This presence—the interconnection of relationship—is what allows us to recover from trauma in a way that brings wholeness rather than fragmentation.”

Building on this, Yong reflects on Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, which speaks directly to those whose backs are against the wall. Thurman interprets Jesus as one who stands in radical solidarity with the oppressed, naming fear, deception, and hatred as the psychic “hounds of hell” stalking the disinherited, and insisting that love can become a disciplined force of survival and resistance.

“I see Thurman’s work as an invitation to cosmic love for all, beginning with those who are oppressed,” Yong says. “The world privileges certain bodies, certain ways of doing things. One body, one culture, one method is supreme—that is a lie. When we do not dismantle those illusions, it keeps us from living in the fullness of cosmic love. Jesus himself was born into a marginalized, oppressed ethnic group under Roman occupation. He was preaching good news to the poor. The faith of the disinherited is about dismantling the idea that anyone is above another, about valuing the stories and prayers passed down, the voices that are too often forgotten—the immigrants, the poor, the disfavored. These stories are precious to God. They are embodiments of extravagant love without limits. This is a lifelong invitation: to refuse the seductive forces of exclusion and to cultivate presence, empathy, and solidarity with others.”

Yong connects this perspective to his work in intercultural dialogue at Collegeville Institute. “We are devoted to listening deeply to one another, whether it be scholars, artists, activists, and/or community leaders—we all have a role to play in cultivating the expansiveness of love realized. We cannot do this alone. To be in solidarity with others is not about superiority or competition; it is about co-creating, being at the table together, and letting the conviction of the divine go where it wants. It is an affirmation of life, a recognition that each of us carries the potential to manifest compassion in the world.”

For Yong, his faith is the lens through which all of this comes alive. “Jesus told his followers: ‘It is good that I leave, for I will send the Spirit to be with you.’ That Spirit is alive, present, and immediate to all life—meeting us in our joys, our suffering, our work, and calling us to deepen and expand the presence of love. It is not limited to Christians or to extraordinary circumstances; the Spirit can move through anyone, anywhere, anytime. Yong’s Pentecostal faith shapes how he engages with the world: in teaching, in healing, in dialogue, in activism. It reminds him that divine presence is not distant—it is near, transformative, and empowering. “Wherever I am called to serve, the Spirit goes ahead of me, beside me, beneath me, empowering me to the path I have been called.”

On a personal note, I found Dr. Yong to be relaxed and charming, with a candid, illuminating way of speaking that made even the most complex theological and philosophical reflections feel intimate and accessible. His warmth and presence mirrored the very teachings he embodies: a life lived with contemplative depth, Pentecostal vitality, radical love, and unwavering attention to the dignity of others.