Author : Richard Lischer
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197649041
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)
Book Synopsis Our Hearts Are Restless by : Richard Lischer
Download or read book Our Hearts Are Restless written by Richard Lischer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-05 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The personal narrative, be it autobiography or memoir, tells what it is to live and die in the world. Spiritual memoir adds two further dimensions. First, belief or unbelief in God is not incidental to the narrative but crucial. The narrator and other characters must determine how the judgment or grace of God will influence the conduct of their lives. Some memoirs tell how the narrator came to faith; others examine what Augustine calls "the life of faith." Second, spiritual memoir entails the (usually) implied offer: "What happened to me, dear reader, can also happen to you, but in a different way, of course." This is the gospel of memoir. Our Hearts Are Restless explores the nature of spiritual memoir via a close reading of twenty-one memoirs or memoir-like works. The author engages in personal reflection with the memoirists and facilitates roundtable discussions among them. The work displays the diversity of spiritual memoir by following seven paths: conversion (e.gs., Augustine, Merton), mystical vision (Julian of Norwich, Emily Dickinson), excruciating doubt (Bunyan), devastation (Abelard, C.S. Lewis), life-long pilgrimage (Harriet Jacobs, Dorothy Day), daily adventures and challenges (Lamott), and nomadic, sometimes angry expressions of faith (Baldwin, Rodriquez). The names above are meant as samples of the book's diversity. If there is a theological argument in this study, it is this: there is no argument and no authoritative theology apart from the lives of God's people and the circumstances in which they live. "The glory of God," said St. Irenaeus, "is a human being fully alive.""--