Shuan, another Henri Nouwen favorite of mine is _The Inner Voice of Love.
A Journey from Anguish to Freedom_.
A book I would recommend to all is Belden Lane's _The Solace of Fierce
Landscapes_. This book is a wonderful meditation prompted by the profound
effect that the illness and death of Lane's mother from cancer had on him.
It sent this Presbyterian scholar of Christian spirituality on a marvelous
spiritual and physical journey in which he explored the actual, symbolic,
and literary landscapes of deserts and mountains in our traditions. His
journeys took him to Mt. Sinai and Mt. Tabor, to the deserts of the Holy
Land, Egypt, and the American Southwest, to the literature of the desert
fathers and mothers and the icons of Orthodox painters, to Christ in the
Desert Monastery and Ghost Ranch in New Mexiso, and to his mother's bedside.
There are few books I have read recently that so siezed me and held me. The
writing is powerfully beautiful, and every page is filled with notes of
reflection that moved me deeply. This is a book to read slowly, savoring
each section. The scholarship is comprehensive, impeccable. The story is
of the power of scene and symbol to transform the spirit.
I first encountered the desert when I lived in the West during the
mid-sixties. Enraptured by its beauty and attuned to its stark and
unforgiving moods, I gained an insight as to why the "founders" of the three
monotheistic religions, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, came out of the desert:
When you are in the desert there is nothing between you and reality, and you
have to deal with it. I love mountains, too, and it is wonderful that I
married a woman with a house in the Blue Ridge. But my favorites are the
Grand Tetons, where I had one of my grandest spiritual epiphanies. Another
is Mt. Zion, at the site of the ancient temple, where I felt a kind of peace
I have rarely experienced in my life. Lane's journey resonated time and
again with my own, less intense but no less meaningful experiences.
Grace and peace,
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shuan Rose" <shuanr@boo.net>
To: "Asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 4:27 PM
Subject: Favorite devotional books
> Dear list,
> I am going on a spiritual retreat around Memorial Day. I am looking for
a
> devotional book or two to carry along. Does anyone have a favorite
> devotional text that they would recommend?
>
> My favorites:
> No man is an Island, Thomas Merton
> The Way of the Heart, Henry Nouwen
> Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster.
> Shuan Rose, Attorney at Law
> 2632 N Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21218
>
>
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