Best Spiritual Books of 2001
The Spirituality & Health Awards
Selected by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
We are pleased to announce our choices of the 50 most insightful and inspiring spiritual books of 2001. When making this selection from the more than 350 books reviewed during the year on this web site, we have focused on volumes that most effectively explore the quest for meaning and purpose, wholeness and healing, commitment and community, contemplation and social activism. We also have concentrated on writers who are presenting spiritual practices from all the world's religions.
We congratulate the authors and publishers of these exceptional contributions to today's spiritual renaissance.
ANGER
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh (Riverhead, hardcover)
In this extremely practical volume, Thich Nhat Hanh introduces spiritual practices we can use to deal with one of the major toxins of our time.
ANGER
Working with Anger by Thubten Chodron (Snow Lion Publications, paperback)
Chodron suggests a variety of spiritual practices that will help us handle this pernicious emotion and transform it.
ANIMALS
Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals by Brenda Peterson (W. W. Norton, hardcover)
With her sensitivity to the special attributes and personal qualities of dolphins, wolves, grizzlies, whales, household pets, and other creatures, Peterson convinces us that we must look out for these neighbors and hold them in high esteem.
ANIMALS
Kindred Spirits: How the Remarkable Bond Between Humans and Animals Can Change the Way We Live by Allen M. Schoen (Broadway Books, hardcover)
This integrative holistic veterinarian describes ways to deepen our connection with all animals and specifically how to build spiritual bonds with our pets.
BEING PRESENT
To Shine One Corner of the World: Moments with Shunryu Suzuki edited by David Chadwick (Broadway Books, hardcover)
This is a delightful, thought-provoking, and wise collection of teachings from the Buddhist founder of the San Francisco Zen Center.
COMPASSION
A Dream of the Tattered Man: Stories from Georgia's Death Row by Randolph Loney (Wm. B. Eerdmans, hardcover)
Loney, in his ministry to prisoners, bears witness to their struggles for dignity, meaning, and love while they are awaiting execution by the state.
COMPASSION
An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life by the Dalai Lama (Little, Brown and Company, hardcover)
The Dalai Lama presents his ideas on mind training, open heartedness, and living a life dedicated to serving others.
CONNECTIONS
Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean by Osha Gray Davidson (Public Affairs, hardcover)
Davidson charts the plight of these ancient reptiles and calls us to see that we are all children of the sea.
CULTURAL CRITICISM
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser (Houghton Mifflin, hardcover)
Schlosser's hard-hitting exposé of the terrible consequences of this industry of instant gratification is a tour de force of insight and cultural criticism.
DEATH
A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories by Nancy Mairs (Beacon Press, hardcover)
Mairs presents a series of unflinching essays on the many guises death has assumed in her life.
DIVORCE
Spiritual Divorce: Divorce as a Catalyst for an Extraordinary Life by Debbie Ford (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover)
Ford sees divorce as a spiritual wake-up call that enables individuals to discover the alchemy of meaning and wholeness in the midst of loss, disappointment, and pain.
EASTERN GREEK ORTHODOX
The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality by Kyriacos C. Markides (Doubleday, hardcover)
Markides mines the meanings of this mystical tradition that emphasizes prayer, meditation, saints, silence, icons, and union with God.
ENVIRONMENT
Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir by Susanne Antonetta (Counterpoint, hardcover)
Antonetta has written a terrifying yet poetic memoir about how the poisoned landscape of her childhood has destroyed her body.
FAITH
The Power of Affirmative Faith by Bruce G. Epperly (Chalice Press, paperback)
Epperly presents 28 affirmations of faith taken from the scriptures that can be used as a joyous discipline in an ever-evolving life in the Spirit.
FEAR
The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron (Shambhala, hardcover)
Chodron offers wisdom and spiritual practices to help us stay with our demons and frustrations, to turn around our habitual ways of striking out and blaming, and to strive to become fearless.
FOOD
The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and the World by John Robbins (Conari Press, paperback)
Robbins helps us to see that every food choice we make has to do with compassion for our bodies, animals, the hungry people of the world, and future generations.
FORGIVENESS
Choosing Mercy: A Mother of Murder Victims Pleads to End the Death Penalty by Antoinette Bosco (Orbis, paperback)
Bosco, whose son and daughter-in law were murdered in their Montana home, speaks out for forgiveness and outlines her vision of a compassionate and humane society.
FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness, the Passionate Journey: Nine Steps of Forgiving through Jesus' Beatitudes by Flora Slosson Wuellner (Upper Room Books, paperback)
Wuellner sensitively explores the thorniest challenges inherent in the art of forgiving, clarifying such issues as the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and the importance of setting limits.
FREEDOM
The Great Escape Manual: A Spirituality of Liberation by Edward Hays (Forest of Peace, paperback)
In his twenty-fifth book, Edward Hays offers us an expansive vision of the Great Liberator who continues to train us to become escape artists from the many prisons that confine us.
FREEDOM
The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom by Dean Sluyter (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, paperback)
Sluyter presents spiritual practices and propositions that can support our lurch toward a full life of integrity and inner freedom.
GRACE
My Monastery Is a Minivan: Where the Daily Is Divine and the Routine Becomes Prayer by Denise Roy (Loyola Press, paperback)
Roy does a splendid job conveying the riches of everyday spirituality as experienced by a middle-aged mother of four kids.
GRATITUDE
Blessing: The Art and Practice by David Spangler (Riverhead, hardcover)
Spangler contends that blessings emanate from a deep and holy place of gratitude within us and express our interconnectedness with others.
HEART
Heart: A Personal Journey Through Its Myths and Meanings by Gail Godwin (William Morrow, hardcover)
With grace and flair, the author takes us on a royal tour of ideas, stories, and anecdotes about the heart and the many important roles it has played in literature, myth, religion, philosophy, medicine, and the arts.
HOSPITALITY
Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey Through the Jewish Year by Harvey Cox (Houghton Mifflin, hardcover)
Cox presents a sophisticated and sensitive exploration of Judaism's depths as a Christian theologian who's married to a committed Jew and is raising a Jewish son.
HOSPITALITY
A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation by Diana L. Eck (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover)
Eck's watershed work maps recent changes in the soulscape of the United States, the challenges stemming from diversity, and the usefulness of the interfaith movement.
JESUS
The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man by Walter Wink (Fortress Press, paperback)
Wink offers a startling and substantive view of the Incarnation and encourages us to see Jesus as the model of what it means to be truly human.
JUSTICE
The Mystic Heart of Justice: Restoring Wholeness in a Broken World by Denise Breton and Stephen Lehman (Chrysalis Books, hardcover)
The authors convincingly re-imagine justice as a friend of our soul and an enhancer of community well-being.
JUSTICE
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Metropolitan Books, hardcover)
Ehrenreich, a zealous prophet exposing the shadow side of American capitalism, helps us respect the invisible poor who are treated unfairly at their low-wage jobs.
LISTENING
The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women by Laura Swan (Paulist Press, paperback)
Swan has rendered us all an invaluable service by bringing to life the words of these ammas who tutor us in cultivating attentiveness to the Divine in the desert places of our lives.
MEANING
Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success by Harold S. Kushner (Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover)
Kushner provides insight into those sterling qualities that give life meaning and value — faith, forgiveness, integrity, service, and doing good.
MYSTICISM
The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance by Dorothee Soelle (Fortress Press, paperback)
Soelle's magnum opus provides a sturdy, ecumenical, cross-cultural, and multi-religious perspective on mysticism, making a strong case for its connection to political action for social justice.
MYTH
Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Times by Phil Cousineau (Conari Press, hardcover)
Cousineau is a meaning maker par excellence in this wide-ranging and creative probe of the ways in which myths unspool in our daily lives and contemporary culture.
PEACE
At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land by Yossi Klein Halevi (William Morrow, hardcover)
Halevi has written a courageous, enlightening, and visionary work about building bridges between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Israel and the Occupied Territories as an antidote to hatred, violence, and misunderstanding.
PEACE
Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action by John Dear (Doubleday, hardcover)
Dear, who has been on the frontlines of civil disobedience for two decades, presents a richly developed overview of this spiritual practice.
PILGRIMAGE
The Sun and Moon Over Assisi: A Personal Encounter with Francis and Clare by Gerard Thomas Straub (St. Anthony Messenger Press, hardcover)
Here is a potent and powerful devotional meditation upon the lives of these two saints that schools us in the spiritual practices of humility, poverty, silence, listening, and love.
POETRY
Given Sugar, Given Salt by Jane Hirshfield (HarperCollins, hardcover)
Hirshfield celebrates the plenitude of being as she ponders the mysteries of transitoriness, repetitive behavior, unexpected openings in our lives, and the wonderful world of things.
POETRY
Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden (Harmony Books, hardcover)
Housden enthusiastically interprets prime examples of the transformative poetry of the spirit.
QUESTING
Red Fire: A Quest for Awakening by Paula D'Arcy (Innisfree, paperback)
In this elegant, simple, and inspiring fantasy, D'Arcy explores the journey of the soul from fear to love.
REVERENCE
Grain of Truth: The Ancient Lessons of Craft by Ross A. Laird (Walker & Company, hardcover)
Here is an impressive examination of the creative process that charts the pleasures, challenges, and wonders of woodworking.
SIMPLICITY
Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity by Catherine Whitmire (Sorin Books, paperback)
Whitmire has assembled a soul-satisfying collection of quotations from the tradition that emphasizes silence, peacemaking, simplicity, and conscience.
SINGING
How Can We Keep from Singing: Music and the Passionate Life by Joan Oliver Goldsmith (W. W. Norton, hardcover)
With great exuberance and spunk, Goldsmith salutes the joys, pleasures, and wonders of singing as a person who truly comes alive when she participates in any choir.
SOUL
The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems translated by Coleman Barks (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover)
With passion, discipline, imagination, and playfulness, Coleman Barks has mined the heights and the depths of Rumi's poetry and in this stunning collection he calls us to soul-making — the inner work that is the essence of our life on Earth.
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
Letters of Direction: Thoughts on the Spiritual Life by Abb… Henri de Tourville (Morehouse, paperback)
A nineteenth-century French spiritual director sheds light on the Christian adventure throughout this sterling collection of his letters.
SPIRITUALITY
Spiritual Maturity: Stories and Reflections for the Ongoing Journey of the Spirit by Joseph Sharp (Perigee Books, paperback)
Here is an ambitious and insightful work charting the inner rewards and the sharp challenges of a deepened spiritual life.
TEACHERS
Proverbs: The Wisdom of Solomon translated by Rami M. Shapiro (Bell Tower, hardcover)
Shapiro's fluid and very fine translation of Proverbs contains prescriptions for overcoming ignorance, practicing self-discipline, and increasing personal integrity.
UNITY
Pacem in Terris: A Love Story by Frederick Franck (CodHill Press, paperback)
Ninety-one-year-old Frederick Franck discusses "the oasis of peace and sanity" he has created with his wood and steel sculptures in a "transreligious sanctuary."
VISION
Navigating the Tides of Change: Stories from Science, the Sacred, and a Wise Planet by David La Chapelle (New Society, paperback)
La Chapelle salutes the marvels of the natural world, the firepower of intuition, and the compassion that animates us to become caring human beings.
WORK
Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte (Riverhead, hardcover)
Whyte reveals many of the questions, crises, and turning points in his search for meaningful work suited to his nature.
ZEN
Zen 24/7: All Zen/All the Time by Philip Toshio Sudo (HarperSanFrancisco, paperback)
Sudo delivers one marvel after another in this astute reading of Zen truths residing in work, exercise, eating, laughter, and sleep.
ZEN
Zen and the Art of Anything by Hal French (Broadway Books, paperback)
With a deft but light-hearted touch, French delineates the graceful ways in which the wisdom and disciplines of this path can be applied to everyday activities.
Selected by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
We are pleased to announce our choices of the 50 most insightful and inspiring spiritual books of 2001. When making this selection from the more than 350 books reviewed during the year on this web site, we have focused on volumes that most effectively explore the quest for meaning and purpose, wholeness and healing, commitment and community, contemplation and social activism. We also have concentrated on writers who are presenting spiritual practices from all the world's religions.
We congratulate the authors and publishers of these exceptional contributions to today's spiritual renaissance.
ANGER
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh (Riverhead, hardcover)
In this extremely practical volume, Thich Nhat Hanh introduces spiritual practices we can use to deal with one of the major toxins of our time.
ANGER
Working with Anger by Thubten Chodron (Snow Lion Publications, paperback)
Chodron suggests a variety of spiritual practices that will help us handle this pernicious emotion and transform it.
ANIMALS
Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals by Brenda Peterson (W. W. Norton, hardcover)
With her sensitivity to the special attributes and personal qualities of dolphins, wolves, grizzlies, whales, household pets, and other creatures, Peterson convinces us that we must look out for these neighbors and hold them in high esteem.
ANIMALS
Kindred Spirits: How the Remarkable Bond Between Humans and Animals Can Change the Way We Live by Allen M. Schoen (Broadway Books, hardcover)
This integrative holistic veterinarian describes ways to deepen our connection with all animals and specifically how to build spiritual bonds with our pets.
BEING PRESENT
To Shine One Corner of the World: Moments with Shunryu Suzuki edited by David Chadwick (Broadway Books, hardcover)
This is a delightful, thought-provoking, and wise collection of teachings from the Buddhist founder of the San Francisco Zen Center.
COMPASSION
A Dream of the Tattered Man: Stories from Georgia's Death Row by Randolph Loney (Wm. B. Eerdmans, hardcover)
Loney, in his ministry to prisoners, bears witness to their struggles for dignity, meaning, and love while they are awaiting execution by the state.
COMPASSION
An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life by the Dalai Lama (Little, Brown and Company, hardcover)
The Dalai Lama presents his ideas on mind training, open heartedness, and living a life dedicated to serving others.
CONNECTIONS
Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean by Osha Gray Davidson (Public Affairs, hardcover)
Davidson charts the plight of these ancient reptiles and calls us to see that we are all children of the sea.
CULTURAL CRITICISM
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser (Houghton Mifflin, hardcover)
Schlosser's hard-hitting exposé of the terrible consequences of this industry of instant gratification is a tour de force of insight and cultural criticism.
DEATH
A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories by Nancy Mairs (Beacon Press, hardcover)
Mairs presents a series of unflinching essays on the many guises death has assumed in her life.
DIVORCE
Spiritual Divorce: Divorce as a Catalyst for an Extraordinary Life by Debbie Ford (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover)
Ford sees divorce as a spiritual wake-up call that enables individuals to discover the alchemy of meaning and wholeness in the midst of loss, disappointment, and pain.
EASTERN GREEK ORTHODOX
The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality by Kyriacos C. Markides (Doubleday, hardcover)
Markides mines the meanings of this mystical tradition that emphasizes prayer, meditation, saints, silence, icons, and union with God.
ENVIRONMENT
Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir by Susanne Antonetta (Counterpoint, hardcover)
Antonetta has written a terrifying yet poetic memoir about how the poisoned landscape of her childhood has destroyed her body.
FAITH
The Power of Affirmative Faith by Bruce G. Epperly (Chalice Press, paperback)
Epperly presents 28 affirmations of faith taken from the scriptures that can be used as a joyous discipline in an ever-evolving life in the Spirit.
FEAR
The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron (Shambhala, hardcover)
Chodron offers wisdom and spiritual practices to help us stay with our demons and frustrations, to turn around our habitual ways of striking out and blaming, and to strive to become fearless.
FOOD
The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and the World by John Robbins (Conari Press, paperback)
Robbins helps us to see that every food choice we make has to do with compassion for our bodies, animals, the hungry people of the world, and future generations.
FORGIVENESS
Choosing Mercy: A Mother of Murder Victims Pleads to End the Death Penalty by Antoinette Bosco (Orbis, paperback)
Bosco, whose son and daughter-in law were murdered in their Montana home, speaks out for forgiveness and outlines her vision of a compassionate and humane society.
FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness, the Passionate Journey: Nine Steps of Forgiving through Jesus' Beatitudes by Flora Slosson Wuellner (Upper Room Books, paperback)
Wuellner sensitively explores the thorniest challenges inherent in the art of forgiving, clarifying such issues as the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and the importance of setting limits.
FREEDOM
The Great Escape Manual: A Spirituality of Liberation by Edward Hays (Forest of Peace, paperback)
In his twenty-fifth book, Edward Hays offers us an expansive vision of the Great Liberator who continues to train us to become escape artists from the many prisons that confine us.
FREEDOM
The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom by Dean Sluyter (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, paperback)
Sluyter presents spiritual practices and propositions that can support our lurch toward a full life of integrity and inner freedom.
GRACE
My Monastery Is a Minivan: Where the Daily Is Divine and the Routine Becomes Prayer by Denise Roy (Loyola Press, paperback)
Roy does a splendid job conveying the riches of everyday spirituality as experienced by a middle-aged mother of four kids.
GRATITUDE
Blessing: The Art and Practice by David Spangler (Riverhead, hardcover)
Spangler contends that blessings emanate from a deep and holy place of gratitude within us and express our interconnectedness with others.
HEART
Heart: A Personal Journey Through Its Myths and Meanings by Gail Godwin (William Morrow, hardcover)
With grace and flair, the author takes us on a royal tour of ideas, stories, and anecdotes about the heart and the many important roles it has played in literature, myth, religion, philosophy, medicine, and the arts.
HOSPITALITY
Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey Through the Jewish Year by Harvey Cox (Houghton Mifflin, hardcover)
Cox presents a sophisticated and sensitive exploration of Judaism's depths as a Christian theologian who's married to a committed Jew and is raising a Jewish son.
HOSPITALITY
A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation by Diana L. Eck (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover)
Eck's watershed work maps recent changes in the soulscape of the United States, the challenges stemming from diversity, and the usefulness of the interfaith movement.
JESUS
The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man by Walter Wink (Fortress Press, paperback)
Wink offers a startling and substantive view of the Incarnation and encourages us to see Jesus as the model of what it means to be truly human.
JUSTICE
The Mystic Heart of Justice: Restoring Wholeness in a Broken World by Denise Breton and Stephen Lehman (Chrysalis Books, hardcover)
The authors convincingly re-imagine justice as a friend of our soul and an enhancer of community well-being.
JUSTICE
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Metropolitan Books, hardcover)
Ehrenreich, a zealous prophet exposing the shadow side of American capitalism, helps us respect the invisible poor who are treated unfairly at their low-wage jobs.
LISTENING
The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women by Laura Swan (Paulist Press, paperback)
Swan has rendered us all an invaluable service by bringing to life the words of these ammas who tutor us in cultivating attentiveness to the Divine in the desert places of our lives.
MEANING
Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success by Harold S. Kushner (Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover)
Kushner provides insight into those sterling qualities that give life meaning and value — faith, forgiveness, integrity, service, and doing good.
MYSTICISM
The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance by Dorothee Soelle (Fortress Press, paperback)
Soelle's magnum opus provides a sturdy, ecumenical, cross-cultural, and multi-religious perspective on mysticism, making a strong case for its connection to political action for social justice.
MYTH
Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Times by Phil Cousineau (Conari Press, hardcover)
Cousineau is a meaning maker par excellence in this wide-ranging and creative probe of the ways in which myths unspool in our daily lives and contemporary culture.
PEACE
At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land by Yossi Klein Halevi (William Morrow, hardcover)
Halevi has written a courageous, enlightening, and visionary work about building bridges between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Israel and the Occupied Territories as an antidote to hatred, violence, and misunderstanding.
PEACE
Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action by John Dear (Doubleday, hardcover)
Dear, who has been on the frontlines of civil disobedience for two decades, presents a richly developed overview of this spiritual practice.
PILGRIMAGE
The Sun and Moon Over Assisi: A Personal Encounter with Francis and Clare by Gerard Thomas Straub (St. Anthony Messenger Press, hardcover)
Here is a potent and powerful devotional meditation upon the lives of these two saints that schools us in the spiritual practices of humility, poverty, silence, listening, and love.
POETRY
Given Sugar, Given Salt by Jane Hirshfield (HarperCollins, hardcover)
Hirshfield celebrates the plenitude of being as she ponders the mysteries of transitoriness, repetitive behavior, unexpected openings in our lives, and the wonderful world of things.
POETRY
Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden (Harmony Books, hardcover)
Housden enthusiastically interprets prime examples of the transformative poetry of the spirit.
QUESTING
Red Fire: A Quest for Awakening by Paula D'Arcy (Innisfree, paperback)
In this elegant, simple, and inspiring fantasy, D'Arcy explores the journey of the soul from fear to love.
REVERENCE
Grain of Truth: The Ancient Lessons of Craft by Ross A. Laird (Walker & Company, hardcover)
Here is an impressive examination of the creative process that charts the pleasures, challenges, and wonders of woodworking.
SIMPLICITY
Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity by Catherine Whitmire (Sorin Books, paperback)
Whitmire has assembled a soul-satisfying collection of quotations from the tradition that emphasizes silence, peacemaking, simplicity, and conscience.
SINGING
How Can We Keep from Singing: Music and the Passionate Life by Joan Oliver Goldsmith (W. W. Norton, hardcover)
With great exuberance and spunk, Goldsmith salutes the joys, pleasures, and wonders of singing as a person who truly comes alive when she participates in any choir.
SOUL
The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems translated by Coleman Barks (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover)
With passion, discipline, imagination, and playfulness, Coleman Barks has mined the heights and the depths of Rumi's poetry and in this stunning collection he calls us to soul-making — the inner work that is the essence of our life on Earth.
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
Letters of Direction: Thoughts on the Spiritual Life by Abb… Henri de Tourville (Morehouse, paperback)
A nineteenth-century French spiritual director sheds light on the Christian adventure throughout this sterling collection of his letters.
SPIRITUALITY
Spiritual Maturity: Stories and Reflections for the Ongoing Journey of the Spirit by Joseph Sharp (Perigee Books, paperback)
Here is an ambitious and insightful work charting the inner rewards and the sharp challenges of a deepened spiritual life.
TEACHERS
Proverbs: The Wisdom of Solomon translated by Rami M. Shapiro (Bell Tower, hardcover)
Shapiro's fluid and very fine translation of Proverbs contains prescriptions for overcoming ignorance, practicing self-discipline, and increasing personal integrity.
UNITY
Pacem in Terris: A Love Story by Frederick Franck (CodHill Press, paperback)
Ninety-one-year-old Frederick Franck discusses "the oasis of peace and sanity" he has created with his wood and steel sculptures in a "transreligious sanctuary."
VISION
Navigating the Tides of Change: Stories from Science, the Sacred, and a Wise Planet by David La Chapelle (New Society, paperback)
La Chapelle salutes the marvels of the natural world, the firepower of intuition, and the compassion that animates us to become caring human beings.
WORK
Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte (Riverhead, hardcover)
Whyte reveals many of the questions, crises, and turning points in his search for meaningful work suited to his nature.
ZEN
Zen 24/7: All Zen/All the Time by Philip Toshio Sudo (HarperSanFrancisco, paperback)
Sudo delivers one marvel after another in this astute reading of Zen truths residing in work, exercise, eating, laughter, and sleep.
ZEN
Zen and the Art of Anything by Hal French (Broadway Books, paperback)
With a deft but light-hearted touch, French delineates the graceful ways in which the wisdom and disciplines of this path can be applied to everyday activities.
Reviews copyright 1998 - 2007 by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, SpiritualityandPractice.com.
