Jon Rasmussen’s Common Threads: A Search for Universal Truths – Discovering the Hidden Unity of All Spiritual Paths is a beautiful reflection upon his forty-year spiritual journey. More to be pondered than read like a novel or textbook, Rasmussen describes the journey that led him from Catholicism through a variety of other spiritual and psychological explorations back to the Catholicism of his youth.  I suspect, if not simply because he’s still alive, that he’s not done yet, any more than I am.

Those who have read Paul Knitter’s Without the Buddha I Could not be a Christian  or perhaps some of Pannikar’s work will recognize many similarities. By examining other belief systems, one can assuredly become more confident in the assertions of one’s own.

 If I could have one wish about this book, it would be that he lighten up on his self-identification as a “shaman.” It is, after all, no more than part of his “false self,” but the term makes it hard to recommend this book to both conservative and centrist Catholics. Recall, if you will, the excitement Pope Francis caused with the Pachamama statues at the Vatican[1] and his subsequent apology.

 Although he didn’t mention it explicitly, a reasonably astute reader would pick up on Rasmussen’s forty-year journey and compare it with instances of “forty” in Scripture, including the Jews’ post-exodus wandering in the desert, Jesus’ fast and others as well. The journey led him to experience T.S. Eliot’s observation: 

“We shall not cease from exploration

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.”[2]

 Rasmussen proceeds to outline a series of common threads he sees in all spiritual paths, which might vary in expression, but which point to an identical underlying theme or core truth.

 The first common thread is intuition of the Absolute. “Before there were religions, there was the experience.” (p. 24) Anyone familiar with St. Augustine’s Confessions or other Catholic mystical literature will recognize Rasmussen’s description of this yearning. It’s described as intimacy, not distance. He describes the paradox of the unknowable and the intimate using incarnational language:

 “The Christian claim is not that the infinite has become finite in the sense of
being reduced - it is that the infinite has given itself without ceasing to be
infinite. This is why the Incarnation is the center of the Catholic fulfillment of
the universal intuition of the Absolute. The Absolute is not only the ground
of existence. The Absolute is self-giving.” (p.27)

 In this vein, he echoes the virtually identical insight of the Trappist monk, Fr. Thomas Keating, whose foundational work on Centering Prayer and the recovery of the Catholic mystical tradition is well known. This excerpt, from Keating’s Open Mind, Open Heart illustrates the similarity

“This Presence is immense, yet so humble; awe-inspiring, yet so gentle; limitless, yet so intimate, tender and personal. I know that I am known. Everything in my life is transparent in this Presence. It knows everything about me – all my weakness, brokenness, sinfulness – and still loves me infinitely. This Presence is healing, strengthening, refreshing – just by its Presence. It is nonjudgmental, self-giving, seeking no reward, boundless in compassion. It is like coming home to a place I should never have left, to an awareness that was somehow always there, but which I did not recognize.

I cannot force this awareness, or bring it about. A door opens within me, but from the other side. I seem to have tasted before the mysterious sweetness of this enveloping, permeating Presence. It is both emptiness and fullness at once. We wait patiently; in silence, openness, and quiet attentiveness; motionless within and without. We surrender to the attraction to be still, to be loved, just to be.”[3]

The second common thread Rasmussen observes is that “We are rediscovering, through another path, that the universe is not a collection of things. It is a communion of relationships…. All traditions, in their deepest vision, know that the universe is not dead. Catholic Christianity receives this vision and reveals its center: Creation is sacrament, matter is capable of God, and the destiny of the cosmos is glory - all individual aspects

of the one God interacting freely in a great play for the glorious fun of experiencing the contrast, joy and love” (pp.31-33).

 In this assertion, Rasmussen places himself at odds with the prevailing hedonist materialist viewpoint that says that no, the universe is a collection of things and nothing more. This difference of worldview lies at the heart of many conversations I have with atheists: they simply don’t see things this way.

 I found the term “capable of God” accurate enough, but a bit clumsy. Some writers speak of worthiness rather than capability when speaking of the interation between matter and spirit. In my view, they’re essentially the same. Would you board an airplane that wasn’t airworthy or a ship that wasn’t seaworthy. Worthiness and capability invite us to ponder the same theme – how is the sacramental reality of existence built to carry infinity and particularity? What does Bonaventure’s sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere tell us about this mystery?

 Rasmussen’s third common thread is that there is an identity deeper than the ego. He writes that “Every authentic spiritual path begins with a shock of recognition: I am not who I thought I was. This realization does not arise from philosophical speculation but rather from experience (p.34).”

 In this section, he echoes Merton, Keating, and other who speak of the “false self” in saying that “the False Center, The ego is not evil. It is necessary. It gives us a sense of continuity, allows us to act in the world, and forms the psychological structure through which we develop. But it is not the center (p. 34). Our false self is the shingle we hang out to get people to come into our store, it’s the id that lets us board the airplane. It’s useful, but it doesn’t run deep. What does run deep is what Fr. Richard Rohr likes to quote about St. Catherine of Genoa, who said “My deepest me is God.”

 Failure to distinguish between one’s true and false selves brings with it a raft of problems, Rasmussen observes. 

“When the ego becomes the center, life becomes fragile. Everything must be defended.
Everything becomes a threat or a possession.
Love becomes negotiation.
Success becomes identity.
Failure becomes annihilation.
The traditions of transformation are unanimous: To live from the surface self
is to live in anxiety.
The Buddhist calls this ignorance.
The Stoic calls it slavery to externals.
The Desert Fathers call it the passions.
Modern psychology calls it the constructed self.

The Gospel calls it losing one’s life to save it stated otherwise – it’s  trying to preserve one’s own life on one’s own terms.

The human being is capable of God, to use Rasmussen’s terminology, but also capable of something else altogether, unpinned from the Absolute and the ground of Love. That is a dangerous situation indeed!

I’m not sure I agree with Rasmussen when he states that “For the shaman [which he claims to be], it is standing in the center of the medicine wheel of healing - becoming free from influences and fully empowered as a co-creator to dream the world into being as both the writer of the script and the actor and witness experiencing it with God and God within” (p.36).

Seeking or claiming equivalence with God is the principal occupational hazard of the contemplative. At what point is it us making things up as opposed to entering the place where ego is silent? His identification as a shaman is, to me, simply another facet of his false self. That’s perfectly fine, as long as we don’t stop there. “Dreaming the world into being as both the writer and the actor and witness experiencing it with God and God within” seems to me at odds with the theological notion of concurrence, which more accurately assigns authorship and participative roles in our adventure with God. The evangelicals like to say in this regard, that if God’s your co-pilot, change seats.

Rasmussen seems to back away from this mild form of self-aggrandizement when he talks about our age’s  crisis of identity:

“Our time is marked by a profound confusion about identity. We are told that we must construct ourselves, define ourselves, invent and re-invent ourselves. The result is not freedom but rather exhaustion. Because the self cannot be manufactured. It can only be received. The deepest identity of the human person is gift. It is given in creation. It is renewed in grace. It is fulfilled in communion.

Every attempt to build an identity without reference to this gift produces anxiety.
Every discovery of the true self produces peace (p.38).

This is pretty solid stuff, it seems to me. I found myself wondering about people who never open their gift. What about folks who don’t even attempt to express any curiosity about who they are or anyone else might be? They, too, are exhausted, but for a different reason. Cultural oppression perhaps?

The fourth common thread is the necessity of transformation. (p.40)

As the discussion unfolds, Rasmussen notes that “One of the most important contributions of the Catholic mystical tradition to the universal understanding of transformation is the relationship between grace and effort.

I wondered what Rasmussen might have thought about Richard Rohr’s oft=expressed observation that “evil that’s not transformed is transmitted.”

When considering the role of discipline in transformation, Rasmussen observes that spiritual discipline  “protects the spiritual life from becoming another form of self-construction. The goal is not to become a perfected ego. It is to become transparent to divine life to receive that gift given through grace (p.43).

 In this lovely expression, Rasmussen neatly evades falling into the Pelagian heresy, which, along with Arianism, is a hallmark of all too many forms of contemporary “Christianity.”

 As a former hospital chaplain, I wholeheartedly agree that “The sign of authentic transformation is compassion” (p.44). I would agree that “Transformation is never purely individual. The myth of the solitary spiritual hero is one of the most persistent illusions of modern spirituality.” I have discovered that heroes don’t like pointed out about them.

 In a couple of instances, Rasmussen tells us that the goal of Jesus’ sacrifice is to realign our relationship with God so that we could return to the Garden, that state of “pure grace and heavenly joy that leads to our next step as light beings”. (p. 45)

 I don’t think our destiny is to return to the Garden, any more than it might be to return to the womb. There’s something about sin, suffering, redemption and resurrection that makes such a return both impossible and unnecessary. Our trajectory in human life is much more launch than rewind.

 The fifth common thread Rasmussen discerns is “The existence of concrete practices that train the human person into communion with ultimate reality. (p.47) In all traditions, “The deepest function of practice is not to produce spiritual experiences. It is to reshape desire. We become what we repeatedly choose….[T]he training of the heart. To tell the truth. To practice nonviolence. To give alms. To forgive. To experience just enough empathy for just a moment to gain knowledge of another’s pain and suffering so that we know how, when and where to help. These are not external obligations. They are the slow formation of a person who can love. (p.50)

 Rasmussen shows that Golden Rule is expressed in many, if not all religious traditions. With a slight modification – do unto others as you would have them do unto you, without any expectation of ever being treated the same way, I’d agree. Some people, like Fr. John Meier’s, in his magisterial work A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, that Jesus never actually uttered the Golden Rule per se (even though it’s in the gospel). Freedom from reciprocity is perhaps the only way loving one’s enemies could ever work.

 The sixth common thread is love (p.56). His treatment of this thread and his connecting it to compassion and appreciation of the value and dignity of the beloved seemed spot on to me.

Rasmussen’s seventh thread is the appearance of continuity after death in many religious traditions. I had some disagreement with some claims in this section. Orthodox Although Catholic orthodoxy is comfortable with God knowing us from the time before we were born, it would likely find discomfort past life regression. Similarly, reincarnation is by no means equivalent to resurrection, nor would does Catholicism declare anything specific about age 33.

 Rasmussen expresses a preference for the stance taken by shamanism (p.70) and acting as a bridge, as it were (p. 78). Hopefully this means nothing more than that he possesses an open mind. It’s, not for this book, but I’d be curious about his take on formal church doctrine and to hear him talk about the perils of gnosticism.   

The eight thread Rasmussen presents is seeing the map. He borrows the Venn Diagram from set theory to illustrate graphically how the common threads overlap in the various religious traditions. This is helpful at a high level but can erroneously suggest uniformity at the element or member level. In 1982, St. John Paul II invited a group of leaders from various religions to join him in prayer at Assisi. Some of his advisors objected that common prayer required common belief. His response was that he was quite aware of that; everyone would be praying in the same place, but not necessarily together in the sense his advisors were worried about. There’s no Venn Diagram in the Vatican document that describes Assisi, and I suspect there’s really no eighth thread.

 The last section of the book explains the main reasons why the Catholic Church is different from other religions. The Incarnation is the most important distinction. Rasmussen finds in it the rational for his entire book: “The Gospel of John declares that the Logos through whom all things were made has become flesh. If this is true, then every authentic discovery of truth — in philosophy, in science, in other religions — is already a participation in

Him” (p.76). Although there are distinctions between these systems, none of them is “ultimate.”  There need be only one Venn Diagram. Truth, it would seem, is more than simply and instantiation of an abstraction.

 Rasmussen is aware of the dangers of isolated seekers and the lack of discernment. The latter is in fact one of the very strong and useful tools the Catholic Church provides its members

 I very much liked Rasmussen’s words about the Eucharist when he states: “And in the end, no matter the prowess of the individual participant, the Eucharist we celebrate is always greater than the communion we live.  (p.81) Wow!

 The eleventh thread is purification of vision. Many disciplines are available to help with that, e.g., the liturgy of the hours, centering prayer,  daily mass, the writings of Brother Lawrence and de Caussad, Ignatian recollection, memorized Scripture and prayer.

 Rasmussen’s conclusion takes us to some very interesting places as he describes how vision becomes embodiment. His conclusion neatly summarizes both the content and the driving force behind creating the book in the first place. He writes near the end: ”This chapter is about the meeting of two movements: The universal human need for healing and the divine movement of sanctification: The ongoing moral and spiritual transformation of a believer by God’s grace. They are not separate. Healing is the beginning of sanctification.

Sanctification is the fulfillment of healing. It is very much the idea of taking one step toward God – self-effort – and God taking one-hundred steps back toward us – grace….

The acknowledgment of one’s own darkness is the end of judgment. It is the beginning of mercy.” That brought to mind the so-called Good Thief of Luke’s gospel. Things took a turn for the better for him after he acknowledged his guilt.

 Rasmussen concludes that “the universe is Eucharistic in its deepest structure. To exist is to receive. To live is to give thanks. To be fulfilled is to become gift. To be in communion

with God and in relationships of love with the all is at our core.” No argument!

I would recommend this book to people who are secure in their faith. Not so much to conservative Christians, SSPX folks or those uncomfortable with excursions into other faith traditions.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

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[1] https://www.ncregister.com/news/pope-francis-apologizes-that-amazon-synod-pachamama-was-thrown-into-tiber-river, September 15, 2026

[2] Quote by T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration And the end...”, September 14, 2026

[3] *3c_The-Method-of-Centering-Prayer-Meditation-by-Julie-Saad-from-Open-Mind-Open-Heart.pdf, September 14, 2026

 

Andrew M. Davis’ Metaphysics of Exo-Life: Toward a Constructive Whiteheadian Cosmotheology is a contribution to current thought about what we might encounter if and when we find life elsewhere in the universe. Before tackling this book, it would be very helpful to review your Philosophy 101 courses notes and review what “realism” and “nominalism” mean to philosophers.

It would also be advisable to learn a thing or two about Alfred North Whitehead and process theology. The book is part of a conversation in which I suspect most of us are not participating, but a “Wikipedia-level” understanding of the major themes of discourse easily makes the book a worthwhile read. Radically oversimplifying things, “processes” replace both the materialistic notions of classical physics and earlier notions of essences in the explanation of how the universe is structured.

The book’s stated purpose is to “widen our view” of the opportunities the universe provides. Davis does this by analyzing Steven J. Dick’s six proposals for “naturalistic cosmotheology” in light of the contributions of Whitehead. He inverts Dick’s proposals, turning them from restrictive expressions to metaphysical exemplifications. Dick’s six proposal are:

1.     Humanity is not physically central to the universe

2.     Humanity is not central biologically, mentally or morally in the universe

3.     Humanity is not at the top of the great chain of being in the universe

4.     Cosmology must be open to radically new and non-supernatural conceptions of God…a God grounded in cosmo-evolution

5.     Cosmology must have a moral dimension, extending ro embrace all species in the universe – a reverence and respect for life in any form

6.     Cosmotheology must embrace the idea that human destiny should be linked to natural cosmic events, not to the divine (p. 30).

Davis addresses the first three proposals by changing the language from “Humanity is not…” to “Humanity exemplifies,…” which allows him to apply Whitehead’s metaphysics to the arguments he makes. The imperative nature of the remaining three proposal is challenged simply by asking od Dick why it must be so, since the claims go largely unsubstantiated or wrecked on the shoals of paradox.

The reader needs to be patient as all this unfolds. Davis has a euphuistic style (to my lights), that makes for slow going. Some of this is in laudable and necessary pursuit of philosophical elegance and precision, but some is not.

As the terms of discourse undergo explanation, we learn Whitehead’s definition of metaphysics, and its goal. It is “the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.” (p.24). If we are successful in defining such a metaphysic, then we will “…fail to find in experience any elements intrinsically incapable of exhibition as examples of general theory.” It is “the hope of rationalism” (p. 26). Some may recall that Kurt Gödel called that hope into question in 1931, and Davis astutely mentions it.

At the root of “process” anything is necessary insistence upon evolutionary development as a fundamental aspect of the universe. It would seem that this notion would provide a stable foundation for metaphysical development, but it simply isn’t so. Recent discoveries about the mechanism of evolution lead us to question now the recapitulation theory of Ernst Haeckel’s. The presumption that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny has been shown to be something less than the whole story, given the reality of horizontal gene transfer, even between species. A presumed orderly progression from “lower” organisms to more complex ones turns out to be a tangled story (see David Quammen, The Tangled Tree) that challenges metaphysicians mightily. This book doesn’t go near the issues raised by that, nor should it. At the center of the target is Dick and his six proposals after all, and nothing else.

Equally problematic, at least IMHO, is Whitehead’s definition of a body: “…that portion of nature with which each moment of human experience intimately cooperates.” As a theist accustomed to thinking of a body being a visible expression of God’s love, I find it entirely too mechanistic. Left undefined are “nature,” (hardly self-explanatory), “moment” (mine or yours – a baby’s or an adult’s? What of time’s arrow?), “human experience” (uniform for everyone? Scope, please?), and “cooperation” (who’s cooperating with who/what? Tell me more about the operations, please). To me, the sentence seems as vague as “The body, well, you know what I mean.” But that’s just me.

Along with Laplace, we are told that Dick has dispensed with the supernatural. “I have no need of that hypothesis,” famously said Laplace to Napoleon (maybe). Whitehead finds it attractive though, for the same reason Napoleon did – it explains many things. As long as God is treated as a concept, God is indeed quite useful. For theists like me though, God cannot be described as a concept, nor is God simply a functional aspect of a philosophy, invoked to make things work. Whitehead is quoted as saying that “the purpose of God is the attainment of value in the temporal world.” (p. 102). He is not speaking of any God with whom or to whom I’m familiar.

The logic gets even more bizarre as pages are turned; Dick proposes a “super-intelligent” naturalistic entity we could name “God” that could presumably change the values of the physical constants that make our universe what it is. Davis points out that such entities couldn’t possibly have been created in any universe where the constants have changed – it wouldn’t be our universe.

There are wonderful explorations of mind, possibility, creativity and value in the discussions and recharacterizations of Dick’s proposals. They will likely excite the reader to do some creative thinking, whether the reader agrees with what’s said or not. For instance, I was intrigued by Whitehead’s notion that “where there is possibility there is mind; and where there is infinite and necessary possibility, there is infinite and necessary mind.” (p. 82). This notion is claimed to coincide with the primordial mind of God as an all-inclusive actuality and hence it’s not far from orthodox Christian descriptions of the mind of God. It is what prevents the universe from “disjointed stagnation.” But it isn’t clear why disjointed stagnation shouldn’t really be the rule. This reminded me of certain descriptions of the classical physical notion of the law of stationary action. It’s true, and very helpful, but no one knows why it’s so.

Chapter 6, “Process Theology and Extraterrestrial Life [A History], provides an excellent survey of research and discussion of the topics. Someone simply interested in the general themes, thinkers and authors associated with process theology and extraterrestrial life might find this quite handy.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys philosophical conversations. Does it tell you if there are Muslims on Mars? No, but you’ll be attuned to how the conversation might go should the little green men actually show up one day.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

 

I opened Neil Douglas Klotz’s Revelations of the he Aramaic Jesus: The Hidden Teachings on Life & Death, with the expectation that it would provide me with a unique opportunity to approach Scripture through the language that Jesus actually spoke. As I read the Introduction, in which Klotz described the three C’s of his Lutheran upbringing (Chiropractic, Rachel Carson and Edgar Cayce), language milieu (German, Polish and Yiddish) and something about his earlier work (p. 6), I recalled a few members of my own family whose backgrounds sounded similar and my internal NORAD went on yellow alert. There are many gems in this book, and also many opportunities for the reader to exercise discernment and challenge.

One such opportunity emerges immediately in the chapter entitled Prologue: Heaven, Earth and Humanity. It describes the mythic (using that word in a positive sense) context from which Klotz’s observations flow. To the extent that his later explanations of what words mean in Aramaic, this mythic schema provides a helpful interpretative foundation. I found it quite speculative but appreciated it for its value as the basis for understanding what was to come in the book.

The next chapter is entitled Frequently Asked Questions. Klotz responds to strawman queries such as “did Jesus actually speak Aramaic,” “what did the term ‘God’ mean to people of his time” and so forth. Since the book isn’t hardcore biblical criticism, Klotz’s answers are necessarily abbreviated.

We are assured that yes, Jesus did speak Aramaic and the language has characteristics of Semitic languages shared by other nomadic, hunter-gatherer communities. To my lights, this was the most important point to be understood in this section. The structure of a language does indeed mirror the interpretative structure behind the worldview of the people who speak it.

An aspirated name for God tells the reader much about the connection between life and the speaker’s understanding of the presence and action of God. It also sets the stage for later connections with mediations that focus on the breath. Likewise, Klotz’s assertion (with many others) that God is more a verb than a noun, reflecting Aquinas’ view that God is pure act, though he does not reference Aquinas directly foreshadows the mystical/contemplative narratives and exercises that follow. I found the nephesh/ruach description familiar and dwelt for a while on the way in which the concepts emerged in the Aramaic language.

I will confess to a dislike for apodictic summary statements in the FAQ chapter such as “At Yeshua’s time, human beings felt themselves less ’individual’ – separate from both nature and other humans – than we do today.” (p. 22). Although such a statement helps us understand Klotz, it also strikes me as untrue and arrogant. From whence comes this global, timeless understanding of all humans everywhere?

I enjoyed Klotz’s remarks about Jesus and prayer, especially as a means of “clearing or hollowing out.” It reminded me of the kenosis described by Paul in the second chapter of Philippians, where Jesus is said to have “emptied himself.” One empties something to make it available to be filled by something else. Klotz and I would likely find common ground on what that filler might turn out to be. As Jesus empties himself so that there’s room for us, so are we encouraged to empty ourselves in silence for Presence.

The section on the “historical Jesus” is utterly inadequate and might have been more profitably omitted. Multiple attestation is a criterion, not a “doctrine”, used by those assessing texts, along with embarrassment, discontinuity, coherence and other such criteria. I would encourage readers to check out the introduction to the late John Meier’s series A Marginal Jew  if they want a good overview of the historical method.

Chapter Two describes the Lord’s Prayer, as illuminated by understandings derived from the nature of Aramaic. I was intrigued Klotz’ handling of Abwun d’bashmaya. At one level, his explanation mirrored that of many other mystical writers (e.g., Rohr, Keating, et al.). Far more fascinating to me was the fact that Aramaic has no verb that expresses the static form of the verb “to be.” The word used corresponds to “living” rather than “static being.” This tied in very well with the earlier assertion that God is more a verb than a noun. The language, it would seem, does not permit it to be otherwise.

Klotz explains teyte malkutakh, “thy kingdom come” as an urgent request, and I found myself in total agreement. It got better than that. Klotz explains that malkutah “is what says ‘I can’ within us” (p. 35). It cannot be “wished away,” but it can be obscured by egotism and become dangerous to our own welfare and that around us. I thought immediately of the distinction many draw between “thy will be done” and “my will be done.” Beyond that, the language connects us to the deeper reality in which we are suffused. I thought of Isaiah 26:12, best expressed in the New Living Translation: “…all we have accomplished is really from you.”[1]

Going deeper into what’s usually translated as “will” is the Aramaic word sabyanach, which can be rendered “heart’s desire.” For me the comparison of these two translations brought to mind the stark, untraversable void between Nietzsche’s will to power and God’s utterly tender will to love and make whole (e.g., Luke 5:12-13). One translation expresses the notion of God as a dictator and the other of God as Love. Can any of us imagine praying the Our Father and saying “your heart’s desire for us be done?” To me, that would be a game-changer!

Moving on to The Beatitudes, Klotz uses his knowledge of Aramaic to unpack Holy Wisdom. “Blessing” can be understood as “ripeness,” or “being in tune with the melody of life itself – the Ever-Living.” From the very first beatitude, things are placed in a different light. Klotz expresses it this way: “Ripe are those who dissolve their small selves within breath (ruach), they live in the shimmering ‘I can’ of nature and the cosmos.” (p. 50). With very little modification, I found myself in total assent. Ripeness and the intimate, trusting connection between small self and Big Self (Reality) reappears again and again in the book. It’s worth the effort to ponder that, IMHO.

Those familiar with Bowlby and Ainsworth’s Theory of Attachment will find a clear resonance between poverty of spirit as described by Klotz and secure attachment. “The person ripening into life’s blessings is holding on to and within breath (and through it the soul) as if their life depended on it. From Yeshua and the Biblical prophets’ point of view, it did.” (p.49) Indeed, one of the biggest corners we turn in our journey through life is to transfer our attachment from mom and dad to God; from those who can’t perfectly supply the fulness of what we need to the One who already has.

For those who find Klotz’s discussion of the second beatitude attractive, I’d urge that you read Dick Schwartz’s book No Bad Parts, which describes our psyche as an internal family system. Much of what Klotz says will fit in nicely with what you read in Schwartz, and the composite understanding that emerges can take you deep within the meaning of this otherwise puzzling second beatitude.

Loving one’s enemies (p.80ff) is presented as an out-of-harmony condition between people, largely based in the self-loathing of the hater. I was put in mind of what musicians do to compensate for each other’s errors while playing music, or what actors do when another actor flubs or forgets his or her lines. They’ll depart from the script or the music, relying solely on their own training and professional experience, to make the passage sound good. It’s breathtaking to watch that in motion – both the one who made the error and his or her bandmates work at bringing it back together again as a team. No hatred’s involved, of course, but the remedy’s the same – working towards re-establishing harmony and flow.

In his treatment of parables, stories and “difficult sayings,” Klotz spends a fair amount of time on Luke’s parables of the prodigal son. His earlier discussion of ripeness struck me as a bad fit from a hermeneutic standpoint. When I taught statistics, I spent a fair amount of time discussing the perils of confirmation bias – looking for statistics that proved your point while ignoring anything else, especially statistics that questioned it. Having discovered “ripeness,” it struck me that it was being applied to far more than what pertained.

I felt similarly unimpressed when Klotz discussed Jesus’ last words (where’s the Passover connection?), the sheep, the shepherds and gates. That said, I acknowledge that I’m coming from a tradition that understands these things differently, in different languages altogether.

The book is peppered with “Contemplations” that the reader might choose to use to experience viscerally the material being presented. My own prayer and meditation practices are quite different, so I did not enjoy them as much as other people might. The “chiropractic” mentioned in the introduction played prominently in most of them. Maybe if I were more flexible….

I would recommend this book to people who wish to gain some understanding of how viewing the gospels through the lens of Aramaic enlarges their appreciation of what’s actually being said. The chapters on the Our Father and The Beatitudes were particularly engaging and provide excellent food for thought, study, prayer and rumination.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

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[1] https://biblehub.com/isaiah/26-12.htm, April 24, 2023

 

Christine Paintner’s Birthing the Holy, is an exquisite little book of Marian devotions that opens the door to understanding of the sacred feminine writ large. Moving through thirty-one different names of Mary covering preparation, calling, incubation and birthing, Paintner invites us to consider Mary much as in the way we might turn a diamond in the sunlight to admire its manifold facets and brilliantly hued refractions of light. The format suggested is that of a month-long retreat, in which each reflection is used as the day’s theme.

Help with that retreat can be found at the website Paintner and her husband, John, run called the Abbey of the Arts (https://abbeyofthearts.com/). It’s mission is to “…offer programs and resources to nourish contemplative practice and creative expression. We are rooted in the Christian mystical and prophetic tradition but welcome any seekers who are hungry for nourishment with ancient roots.” Readers interested in delving deeper are encouraged to take a look.

Rooted in feminist theology yet drawing from masters of contemplative prayer both ancient and new, Paintner weaves a tapestry of reflection that can take a thoughtful reader deep into the experience of life and love. She admires Carl Jung and makes use of his structure of archetypes to illuminate the many titles of Mary. Each title is used thematically in the book as the locus of a meditation upon some dimension of the human experience and of a particular set of theological insights.

Some of Paintner’s favorite authors, e.g., Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Meister Eckhart and Denise Levertov happen to be favorites of mine as well. The book resonated harmoniously with me as I saw some of my favorite quotations and themes appear. I was introduced to a number of other voices too, like feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, with whom I was not familiar.

A certain amount of the material in the book is elegiac in nature. In the book’s introduction, Paintner describes the excruciating loss of her mother. Someone had at that time asked her to reimagine her relationship with her mother in terms of feminine Jungian archetypes, using Mary as a touchstone, and she did.

In the reflection upon Mary, Mother of Sorrows, Paintner writes: “We do not live in a culture that supports healthy mourning. We are most often encouraged to get over it and pull ourselves back together. Mary is here to remind us that the river of grief must flow freely through us; otherwise it becomes stuck and we may experience depression or illness.” Encouraging us to allow the tears to come Paintner invites us to write in our journals about “…the moments or seasons when your heart has been utterly broken? When you lost a loved one, a promise, a dream, a job, or an ability?” (p.107). Having worked as a hospital chaplain who did encourage healthy mourning, I found these words very poignant. I wish I’d been able to be there for here at the time of her mother’s passing.

I found analogies to Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Therapy framework when Paintner described addressing the “voices within.” The overlap and influence of Jungian archetypes is clear in these sections.

Each chapter is concluded with a short poem, or “blessing,” as Paintner would have it. Each says in poetic terms what was expressed in the prose text. I loved the blessing in the Queen of the Holy Rosary chapter:

“…as we pray with the Mysteries

of your life and touch

your joy, your luminosity, your sorrow, your glory,

help us to know our own

deep joys and sorrows

as the very place where grace enters into our lives,

bringing all that feels broken

together into a mosaic of wholeness

like the circle we pray with…” (p.8).

 

This chapter also helped me consider the rosary anew when it suggested that I ponder and then ask for the gifts and qualities of Mary and Jesus that are being manifested in each mystery of the rosary.

 

Paintner and I share admiration for Denise Levertov and Thomas Merton. Levertov’s poem The Annunciation might actually be recommended as prefatory reading for this book. Likewise, Merton’s observation that “the gate of Heaven is everywhere” from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander serves as a key to understanding Paintner’s appreciation of the world without and the world within.

 

This short review is intended only to whet the reader’s curiosity. For anyone who would enjoy deepening his or her appreciation of the sacred feminine to be found par excellence in Mary. This is the book for you.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

 

 

 

 

Practicing the Monastic Disciplines: Finding Deep Spirituality in a Shallow World, by Sam Hamstra, Jr., and Samuel Cocar was an interesting and intriguing experience for me. It’s a practical approach to the spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers of early Christianity, written by two members of the Evangelical Christian community. The authors’ goal is that the book will help the reader along the path to becoming a more conscious pilgrim, a more fruitful servant, and a fiercer soldier” (p.15).

The book begins with something of a sales pitch to the evangelical church to take the desert abbas and ammas seriously. The authors view the spirituality of these people as a corrective to the undisciplined life of many Christians they observe. The authors see life on earth as a spiritual battleground. Indeed, the metaphor of spiritual combat pervades the book. Spiritual formation is described as being joined at the hip with spiritual warfare itself. Those who do not confront the current culture with Christian virtues will end up being conformed to it.

Anyone who doesn’t like weaponized Scripture may have difficulty with some parts, as might those expecting a journey into the life of quiet contemplation along with the monks. A homiletic tone pervades much of the book’s narrative.

The book’s is structured around consideration of eight logismoi (early descriptions by Christians of temptations that eventually morphed into the Seven Deadly Sins) and how Christians today might deal with them as the desert monks did. Scripture-based techniques combatting their influence are described in some detail. The goal of any Christ-follower in doing this is to become more and more like Jesus, “developing the very character of Christ…and approximating the sinless life of Christ” (p. 11). Those who view their experience of the Risen Christ as being in a very personal and intimate, trusting way with him in whom we live and move and have our being might find this to be too much of a DIY project.

The authors place orthopraxy above mere orthodoxy. For them, “spiritual correctness” is not enough. It certainly doesn’t ensure godliness; mere acquisition of information is not superior to actual transformation. It’s also important to recognize the real enemy. That spiritual warfare of which we spoke is to be directed against the Devil and his ilk, not against flesh-and-blood people. That's a message that needs constant reinforcement in some circles it seems to me.

Early in the book, discussing Old Testament prophets’ roles as diagnosticians of the people’s moral ills, the authors present the threefold requirements of God’s people: true obedience to moral and covenantal obligations more than emphasis on ritual observance, love of God and love of neighbor, and fidelity to belief in the singular transcendence of God (pp. 25-27). No card-carrying Christian would argue with these requirements, though some might order them differently. The devil, however, is in the details, and the existence of ~33,000 different Christian denominations in the world speaks volumes about just how well these requirements are met.

Moving on to New Testament ethics and the notion of sin, the authors find a continuation of the prophets’ warning about focusing on ritual to the exclusion of observing God’s law in one’s heart. A general perversity in this regard seems to permeate our culture. There is a danger in such discussions, of rendering the notion of sin entirely too abstract, a mere legalistic exercise in indiscretion, and worse. The quote from Angela Tilby is an example of how sin can end up as something discussed and studied rather than as something constitutive to the fallen human condition that requires a divine remedy. The cartoonish nature of this viewpoint is not helped by misspelling “Origen” as “Origin.”

Using Mark 7 as a basis, they assert that it’s a person’s thoughts that make that person unclean. Using James in a similar manner, the case is built that “…we must first control, redirect and reorder our wayward and disordered affections. We must reorient the interior economy of our desires” (p. 35).

Peter, Paul, and the non-canonical Didache are used in a similar manner, and a catalog of sins is developed that would be familiar to even casual readers of the Bible. In the authors’ view, this catalog should not be construed as a legal template for judgment, but as a portrait of the unregenerate culture in which Scripture was written. Using an evocative phrase from Marguerite Wilkinson, sin is described as “unattempted loveliness.” This overview of sin and our blindness to it sets the stage for the inward-facing excursion that follows, whose goal is to identify the sources of temptation and nip evil thoughts in the bud.

This leads logically into consideration of the logismoi, or eight thought patterns of temptation, and the notion of “talking back” as a palliative measure. The progression of temptation’s influence as described by Father Maximos of Mt. Athos sounds to my MBA ears like today’s marketing cone. My cynical side always thought the Devil was involved in marketing somehow!

The ”talking back” that the book suggests involves having Scriptural weapons at hand when temptation strikes. Deep familiarity with Scripture is therefore a sine qua non for applying monastic disciplines. One wonders what non-Christians are supposed to do.

At any rate, in a manner similar to what Jesus did during his own temptation, we are encouraged to use Scripture to combat the assault of temptation.

I’d urge practitioners to be mindful of how much energy they put into countering temptation. St. Theresa of Avila remarked that the worst way to attack temptation was head-on, full bore. That simply transferred energy to the temptation itself and got thrown back in one’s face. The harder she pushed, the more firmly entrenched the temptation became. A firm yet gentle preference for Scripture might work much better.

A series of quotes form the desert monastics comes at the end of the book which some may find more helpful than others. In my own work, I’ve chosen others, but the ones in the book are well-chosen with regard to their support for the book’s main themes.

It might’ve been a helpful for the book to have included inspection of other dimension of monastic discipline as well as the desert. The Benedictine practice of Ora et Labora might be helpful news to many people. Labora has a way of reducing the intensity of temptations, when properly done. Likewise, familiarity with The Cloud of Unknowing could introduce our Evangelical brothers and sisters to the deep joy of contemplative prayer. Those might work as themes for follow-on books, should the authors so choose.

This book is a useful introduction to the desert fathers and mothers for all those of that part of the Christian spectrum that might wonder of what use these people and their practices might be in today's world. It connects Evangelical practice to monastic discipline very well, it seems to me. Hopefully it will serve to introduce people to a way of life that deepens their relationship with our loving God.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

 

 

Vern Walker’s Beyond Language led me to a variety of interesting places. Walker and I share much in common by way of background. He is a Vietnam combat vet. So am I. He has been an author, a poet and a teacher. So have I. I am familiar with the red rock of Sedona and what it is like to be in a desert. The differences are informative, too. He is a lawyer and a philosopher. I am neither, at least not in any formal sense. One different thing I am that matters deeply is that I’m a chaplain. The language spoken in that world makes “beyond language” an understatement.

Language is so much more than vocabulary and grammar. It matters who’s doing the talking and what they construe language to be. The language of a lawyer is quite different than the language of a philosopher or a poet, or a storyteller, or an engineer. Each seeks communication with elegance and precision in ways unique to the purpose at hand. It is a glorious gift to be able to read in the manner intended by an author, and a severe impediment either not to be able to do that, or worse, to refuse to do so. A special poignancy is added to the mix when reader and author are one and the same person.

Beyond Language alternates between prose and poetry as each of the five themes that make up the structure of the book is presented. I got the sense that the poetry was to there to demonstrate the poverty of the prose as well as, curiously, the poverty of the poetry. I got the sense in the early chapters about sensation and emotion that Walker, seeking the precision of philosophy and law, was uncomfortable with paradox, ambiguity and inability to control (or at least predict) the responses of others.

His discussion of “inside” and “outside,” subjective and objective experience reflects the Biblical proverb: “The heart knows its own bitterness, and in its joy no one else shares.” Prv 12:10 NAB). Language bridges that gap but imperfectly. I’m not sure I understand what he means by “Our talks of ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ makes it possible for billions of people and worlds to exist at the same time.” (p.12).

Stories serve as connective tissue in Walker’s model of space, time and memory. Although he seems to me to be a convinced materialist, I found a special poignancy in his question about the story we tell ourselves about the sun eventually burning out. Why indeed would we tell ourselves such a story? What would it mean? I suppose he could read Sean Carroll’s The Big Picture to find out. I don’t think he’d like the answer, though he’d likely have to agree with it. I wondered what he might make of Peter Kreeft’s notion of “place-time” as a way of combining meaning with physics. It is your presence and mine, and our encounters that carry meaning, and turns the “space-time” we occupy into “place-time.”

In his discussion of predicting, Walker expresses a meta-narrative about the world that I found utterly depressing: “Because life is deadly and the future uncertain, because we desire good things and strive to attain them, many of our thoughts and discussions, concepts and practices, are devoted to predicting the future and recording stories of success and failure form the past.” (p. 36). I’m put in mind of Rousseau’s characterization of life in the state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”  What follows is then a paean to science and enhanced powers of predictability that, having taught statistics at the graduate level, I found as attractive as flat beer.

The section on "explaining" fares the same fate. Walker’s world seems to be decidedly Newtonian and deterministic, even though we live in an age of quantum indeterminacy. His ruminations might be significantly different if informed by quantum effects.

After reading the following sections, I was about to give up on exasperation, but I’m glad I did not. I found Walker’s description of “God” to be nearly identical to his attempted description of who he was himself. That explained a lot.

It got better. His description of himself mirrored Thomas Merton’s expression that “At the center of our being is a point of nothingness, which is beyond sin and illusion, a point of pure truth…which is never at our disposable, from which God disposes of our life, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind and the brutalities of our own will.” Having read this, I repented of my bad attitude about the book and found joy in the last words of the last poem, which read:

“I am

This time and place

Where these words flow,

Obtaining my meaning

From somewhere

Beyond language.”

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

 

 

 

 

Stephen Burnhope’s How to Read the Bible Well is a wonderful resource for anyone who is either newly becoming acquainted with the Bible, or who wishes to learn more about the best way to read, interpret and extract meaning from the Bible. The book might have been aptly named How to Read the Bible Rationally, or Honestly just as well, for it describes several ways in which the Bible has been and still is, misunderstood. It is aimed more towards the general reader than trained clergy, it seems to me. That said, there are several important discussions of modernity, post-modernity and meta-narrative and other themes that are well worth a professional’s attention.

The book begins by asking us to consider what we mean when we say that the Bible is the “Word of God.” Is it to be understood as direct communication from God or is it always going to be the interpreted Word of God? If it’s the latter, then it’s appropriate to ask who’s doing the interpretation and what the ground rules might that help us to get it right. Burnhope seems to be quite familiar with ways in which the Bible is misused, citing proof-texting, confirmation bias and imposition of our own worldviews as interpretative filters. The Bible, he explains, doesn’t answer our questions, but rather only those of the original authors.

Burnhope explains the structure of the Bible the way one might have it explained in formation, which is important for new readers. Different Christian denominations might take issue with his count of the number of books in the received canon, but he does devote a chapter to the different translations of the Bible and what implications are associated with that. His discussion of the King James Version is helpful, but those brought up with it might find it uncomfortable to hear. Likewise, Burnhope’s description of what the Bible is not might offend the sensibilities of fundamentalists, but he doesn’t apologize for that. Instead, he spends considerable effort on explaining how context and the assumptions of both the original authors and current readers must be appreciated to get our interpretations right.

I found his metaphor for the “box set” based on the letter “C” (Season 1: Crisis, Commitment, Commandments, Conversations; Season 2: Christ; Season 3: Cast; Finale – Completion) both intriguing and likely to be of considerable help to new readers who want to have a way of expressing the overall trajectory of the Biblical story cogently and succinctly. The metaphor also serves to introduce Burnhope’s main interpretative filter for the entire Bible, which is (not surprisingly) Jesus (see p.76). This is different that the usual literal, allegorical, anagogical and tropological approach that characterizes other interpretative schemata.

If the interpretive scheme for the Bible is Jesus, it’s necessary to spend some time examining just who he was.  Burnhope’s discussion of Jesus’ two natures is a bit slim, but it gets the job of explaining that Jesus wasn’t Superman done quite well. In doing so, he has chosen to emphasize Jesus’ humanity, not explicitly at the expense of his divinity, but rather to express the immediate relevance of Jesus to us. God is indeed involved in the human condition.

I would’ve liked to have seen some discussion of Arianism along with the treatment of Docetism, linked expressly to the theme of prevailing metanarratives that appears elsewhere in the book. Along with quotes from Max Lucado, reference to the medieval Cursor Mundi and earlier texts that attempt to fill in the blanks in Jesus’ life might have been useful, to point out that such speculation has been going on for a long time.

Burnhope’s discussion of fallacious approaches to the Bible, his treatment of ancient versus current notions of what’s “obvious” (p. 92), modernity and post-modernity (e.g., p. 88-89) as well as his discussion of metanarrative (p. 103 ff) provide a useful backdrop not only to the study of the Bible, but for understanding the field upon which evangelism plays nowadays. They will surely challenge the approach some people take to the Bible concerning what’s “obvious.”

A person new to Biblical exegesis will likely find the discussions about the Old Testament and early Judaism edifying. Identifying Jesus as a halachic Jew might come as a surprise to some, who have operated under the assumption that Jesus was very simply just the first Christian. Importantly, it clarifies the distinction between who we think of as Jews today with who the Jews of so many stripes really were at the time of Jesus. This is a critical insight that readers of the Bible do well to take to heart, to prevent the kind of anti-Semitism that has plagued the history of Christianity. A reference somewhere to the principles of interreligious engagement articulated in the papal encyclical Nostra Aetate would have been of use somewhere along the line, especially since at various point he discusses Jewish, Catholic, Muslim and pagan notions of what the Word of God is.

I found the chapter on Heaven and Hell a bit weak. Interested readers might prefer something along the line of Peter Kreeft’s Everything You Wanted to Know about Heaven, but Never Asked, Bart Ehrman’s Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, W.H. Auden’s poem Hell, and YouTube NDE videos from IANDS, particularly Dr. Mary Neal’s account of her experience.

I was intrigued by the distinction that Burnhope drew between meaning and significance (p.207 ff). Although it’s critically important to understand as best we can what the original context of the writings was, it’s also important to be sensitive to how Biblical texts affect us in meaningful ways in our own contexts. Burnhope calls this “Biblical theology,” and as long as one is clear and honest about the difference between what the Bible means and what I mean there’s nothing not to like about it. Indeed, it may be the way the Holy Spirit speaks to us, even though the official canon of Scripture is closed.

I would recommend this book to anyone, particularly of a Protestant denomination, who wishes to become more intimate with the Word of God. Burnhope has done a creditable job, with flair, intelligence and humor.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.