Why Mystic Peregrine?
A peregrine falcon has appeared in my life during critical times, when I needed assurance or encouragement, so it’s only right that I should honor her by naming the website after her and perching her on my initials. The website also honors my mission: to encourage companions along their respective journeys, searching for paths of connection.
Peregrine means “pilgrim,” and aren’t we all pilgrims on Earth, journeying into the unknown, wandering and pondering? In the process of these pilgrimages, we seek the Sacred Presence who created and sustains us. In noticing those connections, we become everyday mystics. I hope you will join us on the journey, soaring into the blue sky, far above the rapids and cathedral spires.
If you’ve reached this web page, you’ve probably found it in the book for which it was created. If you enjoy the book, please review it for us on Amazon and recommend it to your friends. If you have questions, you may send us your contact information below. Make sure to include a message that tells us a little about you and your questions. Otherwise, your email will be sequestered in spam.
In 2024, I will be offering reflection days focused on some of the topics from the book: discernment, transitions, pilgrimage, spiritual autobiography, everyday mysticism, interreligious encounter, and creation spirituality. If you’d like to be contacted about them, leave your name in the contact space below. In the message section, list the topics that interest you. We’ll make sure to contact you about them.
About the Book
An Apartment Next to the Angels is a collection of stories inviting readers to ponder some of life's ultimate questions: What do I believe? Why am I here? How can I handle disappointment and grief? What will happen when I die? The author shares her perspectives, anchored in her interfaith work and lifelong friendships with people of many faiths and worldviews. Reflective prompts throughout the book invite readers into the stories, to discern their own answers and to create their own spiritual legacies.
The book is available through this website connecting to Amazon. In Louisville, Kentucky, Carmichael’s Bookstores will order six copies or more for book study groups.
If you’d like to know more about the artist of the painting on the cover, Sr. Pavlina Kasparova, see www.creativenun.com
About Melanie
Melanie-Préjean Sullivan, DMin.
Melanie is an educator and interspiritual chaplain in Louisville, Kentucky. Following careers in the museum field and secondary education, she retired from nearly twenty years in Catholic and interfaith university ministry. Currently, she teaches and facilitates conversations on the topics of spirituality, self-discovery, discernment, sacramental imagination, and on Church and Jewish history. She currently serves as Chair of the Margaret Beaufort Association in Cambridge, England. Her book on teaching discernment, Whispers, Nudges, and a Couple of Kicks was recognized by the Catholic Campus Ministry Association for excellence in vocations ministry.
Endorsements
“This bounty of beautiful stories is Melanie-Prejean Sullivan’s spiritual legacy, and a guide to all who seek to discern the connections between self, soul and world. Read and rejoice!”
— Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith
“In the tradition of Cajun storytelling, Melanie has woven her tales into explorations of meaning and purpose. She confronts serious issues with humor and care, discerning how we can be open to the Spirit of love and forgiveness. Melanie invites us to ponder our own questions, to write our own stories, to find hope. If our good God is in charge of anything, it's getting good words into the hearts of the people through books of the most ordinary souls.”
― Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of River of Fire.
“Melding personal experience, delight in religious difference, and theological playfulness, this book offers a spirituality that is simultaneously an invitation to discover “joy in the journey” for oneself. There is exciting stimulus on every page.”
― Alan Race, author of My Journey as a Religious Pluralist: A Christian Theology of Religions Reclaimed.
“Melanie-Préjean Sullivan has been touched by the angel of interfaith dialogue, especially the encounter between the Church and the Jewish People. She takes the reader on a journey, exploring some of life’s most fundamental questions. Her personal encounters, both ecumenical and interfaith, demonstrate a spirituality that is both profound and at the same time remarkably simple. An Apartment Next to the Angels is an engaging, enchanting and deeply personal reflection. Through the use of narratives, notably Jewish midrash, she tackles deep philosophical questions with ease and the reader comes away both informed and sustained. I commend this book to you.”
― Edward Kessler, Founder President of the Woolf Institute, Cambridge
“What better way to magnify the critical importance of interfaith and interspiritual work than by storytelling? Melanie-Prejean Sullivan gifts readers and leaders in religious communities and the academy with deep insight gained through years of experience in campus ministry and as an ecumenical and interfaith chaplain. This book is an excellent and outstanding resource for personal reflection and will be useful as a guide for groups. One of the most significant aspects of Sullivan’s writing is that you get a clear sense that she isn’t just sharing a story, she embodies it. Her storytelling invites readers to create innovative and inclusive spaces for dialogue across religious traditions and to discover their own “true self” by cultivating spiritual friendships.”
― The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth L. Hinson-Hasty, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Bellarmine University and author of Dutiful Love: Empowering Individuals and Families Affected by Serious Mental Illness (Fortress 2021).
“A personal testimony reflecting on many years of pastoral experience, this book does discernment rather than talking about it. In its breadth of reference and vivid portrayals of every kind of human situation and reaction it articulates the essence of theological and spiritual reflection, showing it to be accessible to all faith seekers and vital for spiritual health.”
― Sr. Gemma Simmonds CJ, Director of the Religious Life Institute, Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge.
“Melanie is a modern sage who passes on her wisdom by sharing compelling stories from her life, gently encouraging the reader to revisit significant life’s moments. By attending to the various dimensions of the spiritual journey (i.e., relationship with God, interfaith understanding, need for discernment, awareness of ah-ha moments, listening twice as much as talking), I was engaged from cover to cover.”
―Michael Galligan-Stierle, Ph.D. Past president, Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities