Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

A wise Hebrew king once decided to explore folly, madness, riches, and work in order to figure out the essence of wisdom, the best way to organize a mind, the most satisfying approach to life. His conclusion was to remember the Creator. Elizabeth Gilbert's quest was motivated by similar questions. It took her to Italy, India, and Indonesia and on the way she allowed herself to be confronted and to confront pain, anger, shame, and brokenness. In the end she is much healthier and happier and she has arrived at an approach to life that feels full. Her writing is courageous and intimately authentic - I resonate with many of the situations, emotional dilemmas, and, what's more,  I understand how to enter the spiritual world and linger there. However, I have quite different spiritual boundaries and, remembering my Creator, I prefer not to empty my mind through meditation but rather to allow Him to transform it. Another author, George Otis, Jr., explored the similarities of spiritual experiences between the various religious traditions. He is a theologian and his book, apologetic -in the formal theological sense of the word. I lean towards Otis' bias, rejecting the notion that every tradition contributes desirable, positive spiritual value and careful not to issue spiritual invitations to serpents or other familiars no matter how they purport to transport one to another place or state. There is a spiritual hiding place that, while not at all "safe" to first access is filled with peace and there, in Him, I hide in plain sight. I would love to go to lunch with Elizabeth Gilbert. An honest person, a New Yorker, an authentic seeker after truth, she and I would have an interesting respectful conversation. 

Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat Pray Love. 2006. Penguin Books.

Won't Let You Go Unless You Bless Me by Andree Seu

Wisdom packed into four page chunks viewed through the prism of a widow's everyday activities and melancholy reflections - this is what Andree Seu has created in her book of short essays. They pierce the veil of religiosity by juxtaposing a world-view based in a literal grasp of the Bible with the ups and downs of authentic honest emotional instincts that don't always fit in the prescribed theological boxes - in my experience, hardly anything authentically faith-based fits snuggly into any earthly container. The book was a gift from a dear friend which I started yesterday morning and finished in the afternoon, sated, somehow, with the knowledge that I am not alone in my struggles and paradoxes. The essays feel like prose poems as image leads to image in surprising - even startling - streams of consciousness transitions. I highly recommend reading them.

Seu, Andree. Won't Let You Go Unless You Bless Me. 2006. Word & Life Books. Ashville NC.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Mark Hatfield

The pages have yellowed and whole sections of the book have detached from the paperback binding since the first time I read it in 1976. Then, the former governor and senator from Oregon, Senator Mark Hatfield was attempting to reconcile his anti-Vietnam War convictions with the expectations that his fellow evangelical Christians imposed as a litmus test for his faith. I picked it up again in the days just prior to the election of Senator Barack Obama to become the 44th president of the United States. The issues and agony that Hatfield's faith provoked are eerily relevant today. His decision to serve the people of Oregon in the senate as an expression of his authentic commitment to Jesus Christ but without necessarily subscribing to the agenda of what we now call the religious right caused a lot of soul searching. He describes the research, counsel, prayer, reflection that grew to a rejection of a utilitarian civic religion. Here is an authentic wrestling to come up with a faith-filled political position with which I wish more believers would find the courage it takes to struggle.

Hatfield, Mark. Between A Rock And A Hard Place. Word Books. Waco, Texas. c. 1976.

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

Perhaps one of the most surprising gifts I have ever received from my father, an avowed agnostic, was this book. Then I read it and discovered that AJ Jacobs treated his experiment to live according to as literal an interpretation of the Bible as possible with humility and respect albeit without faith or relationship with God. I recognize the struggle. It caused the author all kinds of trouble socially, with his wife, and internally. He counseled with clergy from a variety of Judeo-Christian flavors and seemed personally the most impacted by an ultra-orthodox Jewish man whose greatest pleasure was helping others obey the Biblical commandments and by a pastor of a snake-handling church in Appalachia. This book epitomizes the limitations of the law a la Paul's Epistle to the Romans- all it can do is reflect a man's true condition. Just like A.J. Jacobs, anyone can walk away from a biblical life lived out legalistically basically unchanged albeit somewhat more enlighted perhaps. This is a very sensitive approach to matters of religion in America. Faith is a very different question, if you ask me.

A.J. Jacobs. The Year of Living Biblically. 2007. New York: Simon & Schuster.

The Messiah by Marek Halter

What a fascinating portrayal of European Jewish life during the Inquisition through the eyes of a Middle Eastern Jewish military leader who attempted to convince the pope to allow him to recruit a Jewish navy to recapture Jerusalem and cut off the Muslim advances towards the West. The same religious excesses that plague authentic practicioners of every faith are demonstrated by the various characters. The Messiah, David Reubeni, is serious and dedicated albeit lacking in empathy, probably diagnosably narcissistic, and possibly living with Asperger's Syndrome. His persona is compelling, pursuasive, magnetic and his arrogance and disinterest in the acclaim of the crowds makes for interesting reading- you get his reasons and you dislike him for them all the while excusing him as he does himself because of the greater good he aims for. His fans and his enemies all clothe themselves in religious fervor and he disdains them both equally. Every so often an altruistic act happens but usually it ends up being self-serving at best anyway. This is worth the time it takes to read. It's uncomfortable reading for people who are motivated from spiritual centers because it shows the incredible loneliness that accompanies a sense of vocation when the "call" is to the top of the pyramid- the kind of "call" which the masses
venerate and the Lord may eshew...
Halter, Marek. The Messiah. c. 2008. New Milford, CT: The Toby Press.