Archeologist of the Soul
Life is not a straight line. The soul grows in spirals, where truth keeps returning until it becomes wisdom, love keeps returning until it becomes compassion, silence keeps returning until it becomes contemplation, and grace keeps returning until we become who God created us to be.
Discover Your True Self
(This is the text for the video if you choose to read along)
Hi, I'm Steve Bruner.
People sometimes ask me why I wrote The Hidden Scripture of the Dawns. The answer is really quite simple. It's the book I wish someone had placed in my hands fifty years ago.
I've spent my life searching. That search has taken me from mountain trails and monasteries to boardrooms, classrooms, churches, and hospitals. I've worked as a social worker, led organizations, written twenty-one books, taught Scripture for decades, and even walked through clinical depression. Along the way, I discovered that success doesn't always answer the deepest questions of the human heart.
I've climbed mountain paths, learned from Celtic Christianity, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Thomas Merton, Francis of Assisi, Augustine, Kierkegaard, and many others. What I discovered is that, although they lived centuries apart, they were all pointing toward the same truth: the greatest journey is the journey back to the person God created you to be.
Some reviewers have called me an archaeologist of the soul, and I've come to love that description. An archaeologist doesn't create treasure; he uncovers what has been there all along. That's how I see my work. My hope is to help you gently uncover the life, the gifts, and the true self that God has already placed within you.
The greatest journey you will ever take is not across mountains or oceans. It is the journey home—to the person God created you to be.
I've come to believe that each of us has a Soulprint, a unique calling woven into us by God. Mine has always been to explore. For reasons I don't fully understand, I've been drawn to spend thousands of hours reading the great philosophers, theologians, mystics, saints, psychologists, and historians who have wrestled with the deepest questions of what it means to be human.
Most people don't have the time, or frankly, the desire, to spend years reading Augustine, Kierkegaard, Thomas Merton, Socrates, Aristotle, Scriptures, texts from other religions, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Celtic Christians, or the latest discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, archaeology, and history. I do. It is part of who God created me to be.
What has fascinated me is that these voices, separated by centuries and cultures, increasingly point toward the same timeless truths. Today, many of those ancient insights are being affirmed by discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, archaeology, and the historical record. Truth has a remarkable way of echoing through every generation.
Some reviewers have called me "an archaeologist of the soul." I've always appreciated that description because archaeology isn't about creating treasure; it's about uncovering what has been buried all along. That's how I see my work. I gather the wisdom of those who have gone before us, sift through it carefully, and offer it in a way that helps people uncover the life, the gifts, and the true self that God has already placed within them.
I don't write to tell you what to think.
I write to help you see what has been hidden in plain sight.