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John, with his wife Gregg,
in front of the building
at Elon University recently
named in his honor.
John with his new granddaughter
Simone Aletheia Winkelman
Born July 21, 2010
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Ten thousand flowers in spring,
the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer,
snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded
by unnecessary things,
THIS is the best season of your life.
— Wu-men Hui-k’ai
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To find our calling is to find the intersection
between our own deep gladness and the world's deep hunger.
— Frederick Buechner
Welcome to the Philosopher's Corner
A much-loved teacher at Elon University in North Carolina, Second Journey's "philosopher in residence" John G. Sullivan was named Elon's first Distinguished University Professor in 2002. He is the author of four
books, including The Spiral of the Seasons: Welcoming the Gifts
of Later Life, Living Large: Transformative Work at the Intersection of Ethics and Spirituality and
To Come to Life More Fully: An East West Journey.
John‘s essays from the 2010 issues of Itineraries
have now been collected into a beautiful new book, The Fourfold Path to Wholeness: A Compass for the Heart. Click on the image to the left
below for further information or to order a copy.
 Click here for a fuller biography.
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Listing of Books and Articles |
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2013 | No. 1
We live our life in circles, as the poet Rilke says. I have circled the sun 75 times. And I have known these places at different ages. They change and I change. I reflect on what changes and what remains constant. Surely all my ages live in me still. |
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Summer 2012
A lover said of his wife of 30 years, “I know her so well now that I have not the slightest idea who she really is.” This loving openness is the fruit of letting go and letting be. It fosters a life where each friend is capable of surprising us, capable of appearing newly, again and again... |
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Fall 2011
Carl Jung speaks about a second initiation, calling it “The Night Sea Journey.” I think of it as going over the waterfall and descending like a drop of water moving ever deeper into the great sea. The Arc of Descent has begun. Less a matter of doing, more a matter of not doing–a matter of following the Watercourse Way, using its own gravitational arc. Receiving. Releasing. Returning. Remembering. Coming back to what was and is and ever shall be... |
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Summer 2011
Our service derives from how we are present in the world. If we are relatively sane in the midst of collective insanity. If we understand what is real, what is true, what is good, what is beautiful and hold to the real, the leaven is there for all, the lamp in the darkness does not go out. A smile remains. Love remains. Compassion remains. Joy resurfaces. Peace returns... |
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Spring 2011
In the end, there is no way to tell sages by physical appearance. They seem irreverent, yet their compassion is deep. They come and go in the affairs of life, making no effort to follow in the footsteps of earlier sages. Mysterious and transparent, they do not draw attention to themselves. Nor do they evade what comes. They enter the marketplace. They return home. They are virtually unnoticed... |
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Winter 2011
I enter the stillness at the core of the great heart of us all. Though the waters remain waters of unknowing, I sense in the unknown a presence of love and compassion, joy and peace... And I can say with Lady Julian of Norwich that “all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” |
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“By their
fruits you shall know them.” And the fruits of the Spirit — the
four fruits of a life deeply-lived — are love, compassion, joy, and
peace.”
 Read the Introduction Purchase the book
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Winter 2010
The Pathway of Love
"The first impulse of love is to serve the other... In order to love in this sense, I must make the equivalent of a Copernican Revolution: from no longer seeing the other as a supporting player in my drama to seeing the other as the main player in a story that is larger than both of us and in which both of us share.
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Spring 2010
The Pathway of Compassion
"Do you not know you are wounded miracles?" This question opens the door to what is distinctive about compassion
. . . The fact that we are both wounded and miracles bonds us
together – with our Source, our deepest self and with all who
companion us on the way. . .
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Summer 2010 The Pathway of Joy
Becoming a sage is not taking on a new role, as if sagehood
were all about me! Becoming a sage is more like letting God be God
through a disappearing “me.” I become a mirror or, better, a window.
I become a place where my being and acting are more and more in
union with the Great Mystery. . .
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Fall 2010 The Pathway of Equanimity
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! . .
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Fall 2009
from The Spiral of the Seasons
...find a block of marble in which the
figure already existed and cut away what did not belong. In our
case, even the [Michelangelo's] metaphor of “cutting away” is too
active. Perhaps better to say that we allow to fall away whatever
was never who we really were nor are. . . |
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Summer 2009
from The Spiral of the Seasons
When we were children, summer lasted
forever. The days stretched out. The light lengthened. The world was
playful, carefree, dream-like, endless. . . Everything companioned
us in a time out of time, where the heart ruled. . .
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Spring 2009
from The Spiral of the Seasons
...there is a touch of spring in every
stage of life. A unique vitality for each task. If so, we can
reclaim the words about youth, without having to cancel the gift of
years and without having to pretend we are what we are not. . .
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Winter 2009
from The Spiral of the Seasons
What sort of trust lies at the depth? Not
the trust that comes with sight — neither foresight nor hindsight.
Rather it is a trust that lives in the darkness, that learns to
navigate without sight. Relinquishing sight, we rely on hearing. . .
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Fall 2008
The people were rapidly approaching
starvation in the midst of plenty. Then, as if prompted by a
collective dream, they started to feed one another. The lesson was
clear. If one only tended the circle of oneself, emptiness grew. If
each fed a neighbor, then – in this expanded circle – all would be
well. . .
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Summer 2008
So in the end what we are seeking is always
with us, before us everywhere we go. As close to us as a pearl
embedded in our forehead. Present before us in the here and in the
now, seen deeply and loved ever so tenderly. . .
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Spring 2008
Sufficiency rests on the declaration that
we have all we need in ourselves and those who companion us — all we
need to live a life of quality right here and right now. This
loosens the grip of “more” in the sense of accumulation. We shift to
living more fully, coming to life more fully. We shift from quantity
of consumption to quality of living. . .
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Winter 2008
“Me?” smiled the elder. “Doing?” The elder
roared with laughter. “This ego dissolved into God many years ago.
There is no ‘I’ left to ‘do’ anything. God works through this body
to help and awaken all people and draw them to Him.”.
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Fall 2007
The role of the Elders is strikingly
similar to the mythic role assigned to the King or Queen, namely, to
keep first things first, to encourage creativity, and to bless the
young... the welcome news is that we as elders-in-training can learn
to inhabit more consistently this level of living, and we can learn
to act from this level more skillfully. . .
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