Small Rocks Rising (Western Literature Series)

Average customer rating:

Like a Rock: Appealing and Powerful and Rugged

A first novel that breaks boundaries

Small Rocks Rising

Flowing Forth

I WANT MORE RUTH !

Small Rocks Rising (Western Literature Series)
Susan Lang
Manufacturer: University of Nevada Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Juniper Blue: A Novel (Western Literature Series)

ASIN: 0874175046

Book Description

In 1929, Ruth Farley, a fiercely independent woman, homesteads a tract of land in a beautiful canyon in the Southern California desert. Determined to live on her own terms and to be free of troubling human attachments, Ruth initially rejects the help of the miners and cowboys who are her neighbors and struggles to develop the homestead on her own.

Gradually, however, Ruth learns that survival is a far more complicated and dangerous business, and the entrapments of love sweeter, and more binding, than she had ever imagined. Determined to take possession of her land, Ruth must first face the consequences of her own stubborness and sensuality, and of mindless and terrible violence, as well as a bitter fight to stay alive through a harrowing and isolated winter. Only then, her hard-won wisdom forged in unbearable grief and wrenching physical trials, can she truly become part of the land she loves so intensely.

Ruth Farley is a character of exceptional complexity--a liberated woman in a time when most women were tied to the home; a joyously sexual woman in a culture where most women merely "did their duty" for the men in their lives; a contradictory, self-centered, alienated woman who ultimately learns the true nature of love and community. Glory Springs, the site of Ruth's homestead, is a place of wondrous natural beauty; it is also, as we follow Ruth's tenuous search for peace and wisdom, a place that we recognize, that we, too, seek within our hearts. Small Rocks Rising is a novel of stunning richness and beauty, of memorable characters and unforgettable insight into a woman's secret and passionate soul.

Customer Reviews:

Like a Rock: Appealing and Powerful and Rugged.......2002-07-01

Ruth Farley is a rock. She is stubborn. She is strong. She is self-centered. And she is as undeniably irresistible as the natural stone sculptures in Monument Valley.

Ruth ventures West, determined that she will not yield to society's limited expectations and dull conventions for women. She will live on her own in her beloved canyon. She will build her house where that huge boulder rests, the one two men have told her cannot be moved. She will have sex and enjoy it, thank you very much. She will do it all despite the cost to herself and her loved ones. And Ruth exhibits all this staunch feistiness in 1920s rural, tiny-town America.

In Ruth, novelist Susan Lang has created a character who arrests the reader's interest and refuses to free it. She is far more compelling and believable than another female character untypical of her time, Jane Smiley's Lidie of The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton. And she is as intriguing as Kate Horsley's Sara Franklin, another young woman who travels to the Southwest in Crazy Woman.

The novel's only flaw is that it seems a little rushed toward the end. But perhaps that is only because Ruth is so fascinating that we don't want to let her go.

A first novel that breaks boundaries.......2002-06-21

In 1929, barely 21 years old, Ruth Farley heads west and claims a homestead in an isolated canyon in Southern California, at that time still the land of rough-and-ready miners and cowboys. What is she looking for? She doesn't quite know, but she knows what she doesn't want - a conventional woman's life of settled domesticity. To her this means she must be totally self-sufficient and independent. Ruth is stubborn, brave, strong, and subject to fits of free-ranging lust that she is not always successful at keeping under control, although she makes weak attempts at it. With 21-year-old chutzpah, she has the delusion that she can spit in the eye of conventional norms for women without paying a high price for it, and she protects this delusion with a cavalier disregard for what people think of her.

Part of her delusion is that she can carve out an independent life for herself in an isolated mountain region without the help and support of neighbors, and a major early story line of the book is her stubborn insistence on moving, entirely alone, a boulder that must be removed before she can lay the foundation for her cabin. The boulder could be easily moved with the help of neighbors, or by using a couple of horses and rope to drag it to a new location, but Ruth is determined to do it herself. The story of her struggles with the boulder, and her eventual triumph over it, becomes a metaphor for Everywoman's struggle to achieve independence against overwhelming odds, and any woman who has learned from hard experience that "what doesn't kill us makes us strong" will identify deeply and emotionally with this element of the story.

Unfortunately, succeeding at moving the boulder by herself reinforces Ruth's delusion that she doesn't need anybody. The rest of the book is a harrowing account of what she pays for this delusion, coming close to death at the hands of violent men and again at the hands of Nature, and seeing the first true love of her life killed because she is a white woman who has taken an Indian lover. Ultimately, of course, she has to learn to see life, Nature, and people as they really are - complicated, unpredictable, sometimes violent, and sometimes unexplainably compassionate.

If the book has a weakness, it is that even though Ruth is complex and multifaceted, some of the other characters are rather flat - her Indian lover Jim, for example, is unbelievably flawless. But in the context of this compelling story, I wasn't bothered much by that. I was much more impressed by Lang's tackling of reality themes I seldom see novelists deal with: a woman struggling with the paybacks of unrestrained lust, for example.

True "literary" writing expresses the universal through the particular, and in my view this book may well become a classic parable of what we pay, men as well as women, for defying cultural norms, and what we must do to come to terms with those norms without losing our truest Selves in the process.

Small Rocks Rising.......2002-05-29

Susan Lang does the impossible in her book, Small Rocks Rising. The story is as big, bulky, and unwieldy as the boulder her main character, Ruth Farely, encounters in Chapter One, while the writing is frequently as polished as any gemstone.
Amid fast action and female lust, there is the slow revealing of Ruth's background. The complex composition of Ruth's character comes from her half-breed mother, a strong-willed aunt, two years of finishing school, training to be a nurse---and the will to be free of it all.
This novel rings with the authenticity of place, and of a woman's unambiguous sexual longings. In Ruth's insightful self-talk and dreaming, there hangs the reality of a woman alone. She is impatient with life and all the people she encounters in her struggle to forge a place for herself in the wilderness. Ruth is an unconventional woman whose thoughts and actions are well ahead of her time. Her courage is matched only by her desires.
As the novel reveals Ruth's story, it also reveals a parallel to the male myth of passage, initiation into adulthood. Ruth experiences the trials of being alone in the extremes of nature, life-sapping heat to freezing snowstorms. She also encounters the extremes of the nature of men---violent to tender. She loses her way in the wilderness of the mountains and her own desires to discover she has the resources not only to survive, but to overcome all that nature, and man, has to throw at her.
Overall, the novel is a great read. Let's hope there is more.

Flowing Forth.......2002-05-16

A time, a place, a person, a community of settlers separated by miles of miles, a philosophy of spirit -- all flow forth in Susan Lang's quiet drama of survival in an untamed wilderness by an untamed woman.

Lang obviously knows her landscape of place and soul. She risks and sustains the characterization of a woman beyond her time, yet, within it, allowing her to make the mistakes such a woman could make in the era in which she makes them. The core standard of such a character is that she is better than she has to be while being no better than she needs to be, according to her own dictates.

The absolute strength of Lang's writing is her own intercourse with the mysterious and magnificent sensuality of comprehending a wilderness of land and being. She understands tiny things that, for her, and now for her readers, loom large.

I WANT MORE RUTH !.......2002-05-14

The only thing I didn't love about this book is the fact that it kept me up late at night until I finished it. The writing just puts me right there, as if I'm watching it the way I would a movie, encountering bears and cowboys myself. I loved Ruth, too, the main character and enjoy her stubborn ways, even when she's finding out she has to change-which she does in some way, though not at her core. I like the way Lang has her trying to force her will on the land until she learns that the place has a spirit "stronger than that of a person." I only hope the author has another book around somewhere so I can find out what happens to Ruth next!

Book Description

L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is one of the standard setters in fantasy today, and his most famous series is the Saga of Recluce. Each novel fills in pieces of the history of this land where Chaos and Order strive to maintain a magical balance.Magi'i of Cyador marks the beginning of a new tale from deep within the rich depths of the history of Recluce. This is the story of Lorn, a talented boy born into a family of Magi'i. A diligent student of remarkable talent, Lorn lacks only the single most coveted attribute required of a Magus of Cyador: unquestionable loyalty. Lorn is too independent for his own good. So Lorn is forced to become a lancer officer, and he's sent to the frontier to fight off the all-too-frequent barbarian raids--a career that comes with a 50% mortality rate. His enemies don't expect him to survive . . .Lorn is a fresh, new character who will enrich one of today's most important fantasy series: the saga of Recluce.Magi'i of Cyador is the tenth book in the saga of Recluce.

Customer Reviews:

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

Delving back into this world's past again, Modesitt takes a look at Cyador's reign. A young wizard, Lorn, is sent out to deal with some far flung border skirmishes, to get him out of the city. Taking a leaf from the old people of Recluce's book, it seems. He leaves a woman behind, who has to deal with her own struggles.

The politics of the White city still cause him problems.

None.......2007-01-05

One of the first (if not the first) book Chronologically in the Recluce series, not the best book in it, but it does have interesting plots and characters. Couple slow areas in the middle, but they don't last long.

Fills background of the Recluse Saga.......2005-08-29

This book goes back to near the beginning of the Chaos wizards. Hints about how they came about, and the technology they are living off.

Dissapointing. The begining of the end for Cyador........2004-07-21

While much of this book was pretty entertaining, the characters are cool, and the basic plot worked up to be decent, this is still a pretty boring book. It gets really repetetive and is somewhat predictable. I guess the main point of this book is just to set the reader up for the next one (at least I hope that's what's going on..) The Magi'i of Cyador is basically just the story of Lorn growing up and getting himself into position to do some great things in the upcoming troubles for his land. Lorn is a Mage, a Lancer officer, and a trader (basically a member of all three powerful classes of his culture) by the time this book ends and it seems to me at least (remember I havn't read the next book) that he is in pretty good shape to muve up quickly in the world, maybe even to the VERY top. I think that I didn't really enjoy this book too much because it tended to get bogged down in the daily routines of Lorn and didn't explain all of the secret plottings and moves of his enemies. I just hope that the next book will be really good because this one just felt like it was setting you up for another story.

the (chronologically) first novel of Recluce.......2003-07-19

Book 10 in the Saga of Recluce

Even though this is the tenth volume in the Saga of Recluce, it is chronologically the first. Long before Creslin founded Recluce, long before the angels fell and Nylan built Westwind, long before all of the recorded history of Recluse there was the Empire of Cyador. Cyador is an Empire built on the power of Chaos mages and Chaos towers (supplying the Chaos energy required for much of the technology of Cyador). The Empire uses the army (Lancers) to hold back the barbarians from Cyador as well as hold the Accursed Forest (the forest that the Druids are later from) back from spreading into Cyador.

Lorn is a son of a Magi family. He is one of the most talented and proficient students in his classes, but he lacks the love of chaos that is necessary to become a Magi. Lorn can do the work better than perhaps anyone and is capable of being a Chaos Master, but he isnýt obsessed with it nor does he truly love Chaos. If you have read other Recluce novels, you know this will lead to Lornýs exile from his family and the city of Cyad. This is most similar to Lerris being exiled from Recluse and going on the Dangergeld (The Magic of Recluce). The difference is that Lorn knows why he must leave Cyad, where he is going, and what the risks are. Lorn is made a Lancer undercaptain and must fight on the frontier of Cyad against barbarians. Lancers have a low survival rate, Magi Lancers have an even lower survival rate because they get the most difficult assignments (so that they will be killed. A personal capable of wielding chaos but not a magus is too dangerous to the Empire, or so the higher ups have decided). Lorn knows what he is getting into, but actually becoming a Lancer is the only way that he sees to live.

Lorn is essentially a moral, honest man, but at the same time he is ruthless in protecting himself and his loved ones from threats, both real and perceived. If Lorn sees someone as a threat, he will kill that man but hide the crime in such a way that nobody is sure who committed the murder (and in some cases that a murder even took place). He is a very guarded individual, mostly because he knows that the Magiýi in Cyad do not want him to live, despite his family connections.

The more you read in Recluce you will begin to see that Modesitt is essentially telling the same type of story over and over again. You can see clear comparisons between Lorn, Creslin, Nylan, and Lerris. There is the recurring theme of exile, and the protagonist trying to find his destiny without quite knowing how he will accomplish it. In one sense, if you have read one Recluce novel you pretty much know how the other ones will work out. Magiýi of Cyador is slightly different in that Lorn has more knowledge and intent in his actions, but the book still follows the basic pattern that Modesitt set up in the first Recluce novel. That said, this remains one of my favorite fantasy series because of the depth of development in the created world and in the characters. We get to see what the characters are thinking, why they are planning their actions, and what the repercussions are of those actions. Modesitt is not gentle towards the protagonists, they suffer more than any other character in the books, and maybe thatýs part of why I like the books so much. My one suggestion is to take breaks between the books or you can get tired of the repetition fairly quickly.

Average customer rating:
4 Titles By Modesitt Saga of Recluce (10-13) : 10. Magi'i of Cyador 11. Scion of Cyador 12. Wellspring of Chaos 13. Ordermaster
Jr. L.E. Modesitt
Manufacturer: TOR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

General | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000RRWJ5U

Product Description

multiple books ship as one item. save on shipping/handling charges.

Average customer rating:

Magi'i of Cyador
Jr L E Modesitt
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTPCA0

Magi'i Of Cyador - The New Novel In The Saga Of Recluce

Average customer rating:

Magi'i Of Cyador - The New Novel In The Saga Of Recluce
L. E., Jr. Modesitt
Manufacturer: Tor/Tom Doherty Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LX49UI

Book Description

This daring, star-packed collection is the fantasy publishing event of the year. Challenging the boundaries of modern fantasy, this all-original anthology features stories from Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Harry Turtledove, Larry Niven, Dennis L. McKiernan, Joe R. Lansdale, George R. R. Martin, Barbara Hambly, Charles de Lint, Terry Bisson, Patricia A. McKillip, Tim Powers, and more.

Customer Reviews:

Flights soars on the wings of fantasy's finest.......2006-03-20

I initially bought this book out of my love for Neil Gaiman and his fiction. I wanted to read a rather elusive short story of his, which I wasn't disappointed by. To further add to my pleasure was how engaging the other tales were. All were imaginative, unique, and - at times - impossible to put down.

The only reason I didn't give this a perfect 5 out of 5 was because, as with any anthology, the stories can be hit or miss. While most of the authors and their respective styles compliment the collection, there are a few that just didn't grip me like the others. Keep in mind, this is more of a personal tastes issue than a comment against the authors, so I won't name names. I'll just finish by saying if you like fantasy anthologies, this is a wonderful addition.

original and refreshing.......2006-02-28

I didn't quite know what to expect from such a tile, what they meant by extreme. It's mostly unusual ways to approach fantasy, intended for an audience that matured from dragons and elves and expects a little bit more. I found many of the stories refreshingly original, twisted, and mind-bending. Among my favorites was a new take on Rapunzel told by an unlikely character, a sweet and sad story of a fallen angel, an interesting visit to Hell, and last but not least, a lion a bit too friendly to a certain witch. I also found some useful information, like how to tell when there's a demon around, by an unusual separation of cold and hot air. Good to know. An entertaining collection on the whole and that will most likely make me search for more books from some of the authors.

Quality Reading, Wonderful Book full of surprises...........2005-01-01

Just received this this week,(good way to start the new year) and I'm impressed with this book but I'm not surprised with
anything that Al Sarrantonio put his hands to. What a cast of
characters that deliver these stories. I'm just finishing up
the great American East Texas storyteller Joe R. Lansdale and
his new story, "Bill, the little steam shovel" and its nothing
like I've read by Joe before but its so good, so like Joe Lansdale in its detail, humor and vision. This anthology has
so many great stories and what a list of who's who... Orson Scott Card, Joyce
Carol Oats, Neal Barrett jr., Charles De Lint, P.D. Cacek,
Robert Silverberg, Nina Hoffman, Neil Gaiman, David Morrell,
Ray Feist as well as the above master story teller Joe Lansdale
this is a great way to spend extra time around the holidays!
Pick your favorites!

Powerhouse Anthology.......2004-11-28

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Robert Silverberg - The twist is that the sorcerer is actually a woman, and the apprentice is a young man who is instantly smitten by her. However, she treats him coldly...most of the time.

"Perpetua" by Kit Reed - Strange story in which a father's love is carried too far.

"The Edges of Never-Haven" by Catherine Asaro - In the town of Never-Haven, people live in curved houses and cannot create any straight line, not even a line in the dirt, without summoning demons.

"Pat Moore" by Tim Powers - Brilliant, suspenseful ghost story.

"Six Hypotheses" by Joyce Carol Oates - Strange story showing six hypotheses for the basis of a violent incident in a seemingly normal family.

"The Silver Dragon" by Elizabeth A. Lynn - In this land the King can shapechange into a dragon.

"Fallen Angel" by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. - Devout religious people may not care for this story much.

"The Following" by P.D. Cacek - Chilling ghost story with a twist.

"A Tower With No Doors" by Dennis L. McKiernan - Nice take on Rapunzel

"Boomerang" by Larry Niven - Too short to describe

"Wonderwall" by Elizabeth Hand - Sorry, don't remember much about this one (I don't have the book anymore)

"Blood, Oak, Iron" by Janny Wurts - Every time a King dies, the successor is possessed by an evil spirit. Can the cycle ever be broken?

"Riding Shotgun" by Charles de Lint - A man clearing out his deceased father's estate stumbles upon an old car and is transported back in time to a critical event in his past.

"Demons Hide Their Faces" by A.A. Attasnasio - A skeptical young man discovers the truth about missing books.

"Relations" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Can't remember

"Tourists" by Neal Barrett, Jr. - Can't remember

"The White Man" by Thomas M. Disch - A chilling tale of race relations and vampires.

"Out of the Woods" by Patricia A. McKillip - can't remember

"Perchance to Dream" by David Morrell - A doctor tries to treat a patient for sleep disorder.

"Coming Across" by Harry Turtledove - Elves who can live forever (if they don't die of boredom-literally) created a gate to visit another world (ours) in search of interesting experiences. Little do they know what they will find and accidentally bring back with them.

"The Problem of Susan" by Neil Gaiman - Related to C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle

"Keeper of Lost Dreams" by Orson Scott Card - A young person discovers he is the keeper of the title

"Watchfire" by Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts - can't remember

"Tots" by Peter Schneider - Four-year old children who fight each other to death for the amusement of adults

"Jupiter's Skull" by Jeffrey Ford - A strange psychic woman leaves a legacy in tea leaves for a man and woman who had visited her often when she was alive.

"Death's Door" by Terry Bisson - What happens when the dying can't die?

"Bill, the Little Steam Shovel" by Joe R. Lansdale - A totally irreverent, hilarious tale of a steam shovel who dreams of being more than he is.

"Sleepover" by Al Sarrantonio - Two children wake up on a flat, deserted, alien plain.

"Golden City Far" by Gene Wolfe - A young man's dreams invade his waking life.

A wonderful mix of classic and modern fantasy, as well as stories that defy categorizing. Despite the title, the stories are not about flights or flying. Not all of the stories are winners, but there is enough good stuff here to warrant a 5 star recommendation.

My personal favorites: "Pat Moore" by Tim Powers, "The Silver Dragon" by Elizabeth A. Lynn, "Riding Shotgun" by Charles de Lint, "Coming Across" by Harry Turtledove, and "Bill, the Little Steam Shovel" by Joe R. Lansdale.

powerful fantasy collection.......2004-06-02

Taking the who's who of modern day fantasy, twenty-nine worthy contributors provide powerful tales that run the genre's gamut and beyond. Each tale is well written with some so good they may prove to be the opening act of a new series. Fans of anthologies will have a feast for these are the grandmasters in one collection and all provide a fine contribution that makes the realm and cast seem real, not an easy venture for a novel let alone a short. Editor Al Sarrantonio needs investigating for blackmail because he must have something on notable authors like Turtledove, Feist, De Lint, Wolfe, Silverberg, Niven, Oates, Asaro, etc to get all of them to contribute to this quality offering.

Average customer rating:

Spirituality by Committee

Seeking the "virgin point"

Compares saints, gateways to the heart, remembrances of God

Paths of the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East (Perennial Philosophy Series)
James Cutsinger
Manufacturer: World Wisdom
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Orthodoxy | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Theology | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Mysticism | Other Practices | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Comparative Religion | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Sufism | Islam | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Not of This World: A Treasury of Christian Mysticism (Treasures of the World's Religions)

The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity (Writings of Frithjof Schuon)

Merton & Sufism: The Untold Story: A Complete Compendium (The Fons Vitae Thomas Merton series)

Prayer Fashions Man: Frithjof Schuon on the Spiritual Life (Library of Perennial Philosophy)

Merton & Hesychasm: The Prayer of the Heart & the Eastern Church (The Fons Vitae Thomas Merton series)

ASIN: 0941532437

Book Description

With wisdom that rings well with the heart, this volume answers the questions What do the mystical traditions of the Christian East and Sufism have in common? and Is there a dialogue that can promote a deep and lasting bond between Christianity and Islam? Amongst others, the contributors include Gray Henry, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Huston Smith.

Download Description

This book is a collection of essays concerning the mystical and contemplative dimensions of Eastern Christianity and Islam presented at the October 2001 conference on Hesychasm and Sufism at the University of South Carolina. Contributions from internationally recognized spiritual leaders and scholars include Bishop Kallistos Ware, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Huston Smith, James Cutsinger, William Chittick, John Chryssavgis, Gray Henry, Andrew Louth, and Reza Shah-Kazemi. Despite the long and well-known history of conflict between Christians and Muslims, their mystical traditions especially in the Christian East and in Sufism, have shared for centuries many of the same spiritual methods and goals. One thinks, for example, of the profound similarities between the practices of the Jesus Prayer among the Hesychast masters of the Philokalia and the Sufi practices of dhikr or invocation. These commonalities suggest the possibility for a deeper kind of religious dialogue than is customary in our day, a dialogue which seeks to foster what Frithjof Schuon has called inward or "esoteric" ecumenism, and which, while respecting the integrity of traditional dogmas and rites, "calls into play the wisdom which can discern the one sole Truth under the veil of different forms." The purpose of this book, the first major publication of its kind, is to promote precisely this more inward kind of ecumenical perspective. Contributors include some of the world's leading authorities on Christian and Muslim spirituality, including Bishop Kallistos Ware, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Huston Smith, James Cutsinger, Reverend John Chryssavgis, William Chittick and Reza Shah-Kazemi. Their essays point to a spiritual heart in which the deeper meaning of Christian and Muslim beliefs and practices come alive, and where spiritual pilgrims may discover, beyond the level of seemingly contradictory forms, an inner commonality with those who follow other paths.

Customer Reviews:

Spirituality by Committee.......2004-04-22

The immediate premise for this book was a conference held at the University of South Carolina in October 2001, the purpose of which was an attempt to find some common ground in Christian and Muslim spirituality. In fact, it amounted to a meeting of noted writers on two traditions: Christian Hesychasm and Islamic Sufism.

While I would not denigrate either of these traditions, it is only fair to say that neither one of them represents the entire spectrum of spirituality in their representative faiths. "Hesychasm", for the uninitiated, is a tradition associated primarily with Eastern Orthodoxy, and it is mainly associated with the use of certain techniques of prayer - primarily but not exclusively the Jesus Prayer - to attain a greater sense of the presence of God. While this spiritual tradition has achieved a certain level of awareness mainly in Roman Catholic and Anglican circles in the last forty years or so, it would be a stretch to say that it is mainstream Christianity, at least in the West; many Christians view it with misgivings, with some Catholics fearing a denigration of sacramental life and some Protestants seeing it as a rejection of the Bible as the ultimate source of inspiration, and as an attempt to relate to God "by technique" rather than by establishing a personal relation with Jesus.

As for Sufism, it respresents a much larger collection of spiritual practices than Hesychasm, although probably the best known practice of most Sufi orders is "dhikr" - an Arabic word that means both "mentioning" and "remembrance", and which consists mainly of the repetitive use of either the names of God or a short prayer. As is the case with Hesychasm among Christians, many modern Muslims would hesitate to call Sufism "mainstream." Indeed, a large segment of the international Muslim community - a segment that contains a considerable portion of the more educated, articulate Muslims worldwide - maintains that Sufism is an artificial accretion on Islam which all true Muslims should condemn.

It appears that the major reason why these two groups are talking to each other is that the techniques that they both use regarding the Jesus Prayer and dhikr resemble each other to a considerable extent, so much so that many scholars maintain some borrowing of technique. The array of scholars that contributed to this book is a Who's Who of these particular areas of spirituality, including two Orthodox clergy - Bishop Ware and Father Chryssavgis - and two Muslim scholars who are highly respected in the West, although their background - Seyyed Hossein Nasr is from a Shiite background, while Reza Shah-Kazemi is Ismaili - are not apt to endear either of them to Sunni Muslim reader. Most of the other contributors are academics, including major names in the field such as James Cutsinger and William Chittick. Throughout most of the book the writers seem to be talking at cross-purposes to each other, however. Personally, I am inclined to feel that this was to some extent inevitable. I believe that one of the contributors, Peter Samsel, hit the nail on the head when he stated that whereas Islam has considerable "theological space" for Christianity, Christians are almost inherently incapable of returning the favor. What this means is that Islam recognizes that Christianity is a valid form of spirituality, and while Muslims feel that Christ's original message was distorted by Christians and in any case was superseded by Islam, most would concede that a man can be a Christian and be truly spiritual; in fact, the Koran states as much in several passages. Christians, on the other hand, are basically incapable of saying the same about Islam, since to do so would be tantamount to stating that a valid revelation could occur after Christ; from the Christian perspective, Islam can only be an aberration.

The essays in the book are intentionally arranged to start with the ones that are at the most opposed poles and to move toward those that tend to converge, culminating in an article by Huston Smith, with leaves one with a bittersweet sense that we all have a long way to go.

The book provided an excellent forum for both sides of this argument to have their say, and is a useful exposition of polite academic debate in the area. Having said that, the book has little new in the way of true spirituality. If you're interested enough in the subject to be interested in this book, it probably won't tell you anything you didn't already know.

Seeking the "virgin point".......2002-12-24

A perusal of current media in print, radio and television reinforces the observation that we are living in a time when the cultures of the Middle East are portrayed as ideologically opposed to the West. At the core of our alleged differences is the role of Islamic fundamentalism with its hegemonic determination to dominate cultures both in the Middle East and abroad. Such views are not new. The "clash of civilizations" theory of Samuel Huntington had already proposed and popularized this understanding in the mid-1990s. At a time when this perspective is gaining momentum, it is helpful to seek a corrective to a myopic understanding of Islam that often accompanies Huntington's theory; namely, that Islam is nothing more than Wahhabism. Moreover, a historical reexamination of Christianity's own understanding of God can be beneficial for "Westerners" who tend to understand their own religious heritage typically through modern Protestant lenses, which often leads to the positing of false dichotomies between Islam and Christianity, seeing them as mutually exclusive with no common ground. By reconsidering the mystical theologies of each religion it can be shown that a fundamental convergence occurs in the mystical thought and experience of each tradition. In particular, this inner commonality can form the basis of a deeper conversation between Christians and Muslims than has been typical in our day, aiding in a clearer mutual understanding of the similarities that exist between the fundamental religious traditions of our cultures. To this end, Paths To The Heart is an excellent beginning.

As Thomas Merton said in his Conjectures:
"Le point vierge is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see the billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely...I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere."

May we seek the gate of heaven everywhere.

Compares saints, gateways to the heart, remembrances of God.......2002-12-12

Compiled and edited by James S. Cutsinger (Professor of Theology and Religious Thought, University of South Carolina), Paths To The Heart: Sufism And The Christian East is an informed and informative study of the common threads and traits shared between the traditions of the Christian East and Islamic Sufism. A valued and highly recommended anthology of essays by a series of learned and erudite authors contemplating a lasting dialogue and connection between Christianity and Islam, Paths To The Heart compares saints, gateways to the heart, remembrances of God, and much more as seen by religions with so much more in common than is usually acknowledged by their practitioners.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books