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Spirituality:
Books Five
intriguing spiritual titles By JOHN L. ALLEN JR. NCR Staff
Tastes in spiritual writing are
notoriously idiosyncratic. One persons wisdom is anothers banality.
I may sense the stirrings of the divine, for example, in the takeout menu from
my favorite barbecue joint, while others may glimpse the transcendent in a
Danielle Steele novel. The Spirit has the annoying habit of picking the oddest
places to show up.
Thus, while books with explicitly spiritual themes may not be
everyones cup of tea, they may also hold some hidden treasures for those
willing to explore. The five books featured in these capsule reviews hint at
the staggering variety of literature out there; they seemed among the most
intriguing to cross the desk in recent months.
The Best Spiritual Writing 1998 edited by Philip
Zaleski (Harper San Francisco)
Any best of anthology is an ambitious undertaking. A
lot like the American Film Institutes list of the 100 best American
movies, this list invites debate; readers of NCR may be disappointed,
for example, that no room was found among the 38 contributions for one of
Trappist Fr. James Stephen Behrens essays that frequently grace
NCRs page 2 Starting Point. Still, the selections from Natalie
Goldberg and Rick Moody are worth the price of the book almost by themselves,
along with good stuff from old favorites such as Thomas Moore and Huston Smith.
It is the kind of collection that makes a good addition to a reading table, to
be picked up in quiet moments and harvested for the insights it contains. While
it may not in all cases represent the best, its universally
quite good.
Sister Wendys Book of Meditations by Sr. Wendy
Beckett (DK Publishing)
Best known as the chatty nun from her BBC series of art
documentaries, Sr. Wendy here serves up a collection of spiritual ruminations
prompted by various works of art, handsomely reproduced in full color.
Organized around the themes of silence, peace,
love, and joy, the writing is impressive, even moving
in spots; but theres no doubt the real winner here is the art, beautiful
and stunning and spiritually eloquent all by itself. This is a book to be moved
through slowly, savoring the images that rise up from every page. All genres
and periods of art are represented. While Sr. Wendys commentary does a
fine job of picking out themes from each, images such as the little girl
peeking around a corner from Crivellis The Annunciation, or
the rapturous expression on the saints face in Berninis
Ecstasy of St. Teresa, are far too multilayered and resonant to be
fully captured in anybodys summary. They demand personal contemplation --
and richly reward it as well.
Lectio Divina: Renewing the Ancient Practice of Praying
the Scriptures, by Trappist Fr. M. Basil Pennington (Crossroad
Publishing)
A prolific author, and perhaps an even more prolific giver of
retreats, Pennington is best known as an exponent of what he has termed
centering prayer. Here Pennington takes up a spiritual exercise
with a rich history, made famous by St. Augustine himself, whose conversion was
triggered by reflecting on a scripture passage selected at random. Pennington
gets into his subject quickly, without artifice, and writes in an appealingly
unpretentious fashion. His text is free of the puffery and the in-group jargon
that many spiritual masters develop over the years. This book is a how-to
manual; it is not intended as the object of meditation itself. Instead, it
offers practical suggestions for individual and group use of scripture in
prayer. It is in that sense like a road map produced by an experienced guide --
one that will reliably lead deeper in the divine mystery for those who choose
to follow it.
Beyond the Darkness: A Biography of Bede Griffiths
by Shirley Du Boulay (Doubleday)
Even at age 86 and on the edge of death, wrote Tim
McCarthy in NCR in 1993, Benedictine Fr. Bede Griffiths was still running
so far ahead of the pack that his lifes momentum will quicken him for
many springs to come. Few obituaries have proved more prophetic, as
interest in Griffiths life and thought continues to grow. Born into a
conventional middle-class English home, Griffiths grew up to become a
Benedictine monk, a friend of C.S. Lewis, then a leading advocate of East/West
religious dialogue and eventually the leader of an Indian ashram. He
anticipated spiritual currents well before they hit the mainstream, and,
according to the testimony of those who knew him, radiated a personal integrity
that lent credibility to his public spiritual evolution. He also suffered at
the hands of church authorities who sometimes saw Griffiths as too willing to
let go of dogmatic and disciplinary accidentals in the quest for
inter-religious unity. Today many spiritual writers look to Griffiths as an
undeclared patron saint of the quest to find the points of transcendence that
unite all faiths. In this biography, Du Boulay presents her subject warts and
all, including the self-doubt and sense of failure that plagued Griffiths right
up to the end. His was a life most brilliantly lived, and Du Boulay does a
commendable job of capturing it.
Falling Toward Grace: Images of Religion and Culture from
the Heartland edited by J. Kent Calder and Susan Neville (The Polis Center
and Indiana University Press)
Dont let the title fool you -- this book isnt just
about generic white Midwestern Protestants, though they, too, get their day in
court. But the book has a much wider lens, capturing Muslims and Jews and
Orthodox believers and an African-American Baptist congregation and dozens of
others too, all from the state of Indiana. In that sense its a powerful
statement about the religious diversity of America, even in a place regarded as
less diverse than many other spots in the country. The essays are for the most
part quite good, each commenting on a particular faith tradition, usually
drawing on personal experience. The photos by Kim Charles Ferrill are moving
too, especially in capturing the quiet sanctity of ordinary moments, such as
two people hugging after a church service or a young Muslim intently at prayer.
For anyone seeking to understand the enduring power of religious faith in
contemporary America, this is an indispensable volume.
National Catholic Reporter, December 4,
1998
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