Spiritual Living

Spring, nature's season of ebullience, often finds religious minds in a mood of introspection and preparation, and publications in spiritual living follow suit. This March issue of our column sees, among the Basics, some rather unusual Passover and Easter titles, as well as an Orthodox Patriarch's friendly introduction to Eastern Christianity and the latest edition of the ever-useful How To Be a Perfect Stranger.

In For Further Thought, we acknowledge Donald Capps's innovative take on the historical Jesus, as well as R.D. Gold's angry denunciation of biblical literalism among Orthodox Jews. Life Questions features Thomas Moore's encounter with the spirituality of our professional and quasi-professional lives and journalist Mike Marqusee's hackle-raising anti-Zionist memoir.

As the election approaches, we may anticipate many attempts to come to terms not only with each party's candidates but the spiritual implications of America's predicaments, its place in the world, and its future.

The growth of Orthodox Christianity in the United States, like that of Islam, is one of the most important phenomena in religious life today and also one of the phenomena about which most readers are least informed. Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, has stepped up to try to remedy our ignorance with this relatively brief and quite accessible book. Not so much a systematic account of Orthdox theology—and also not intended to persuade or convert—it can hardly be bettered as a reader's first guide to what those new neighbors in the Christian cul-de-sac might be thinking. For most collections.

This seasonally appropriate little book guides readers day by day through the observation of Lent and Easter by means of a series of reflections on and prayers to the Virgin Mary, who remains a key figure in Catholic spirituality. Each day offers an event, anecdote, legend, or miracle about Mary, followed by a prayer. A charming and accessible personal supplement to public liturgical practice, this work should attract many Catholic readers. For most collections.

Frawley (Yoga and Ayurveda; Vedantic Meditation), director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies, offers a very brief, plainly written, and straightforward guide to the principles of yoga. As he reminds us, yoga goes far beyond the controlled body postures the word brings up for most Western readers. It is the outward expression of the principles of nonviolence, truthfulness, and self-control that exemplify the most thoughtful applied Hindu practice today. For most collections.

A notable feature of modern Judaism, especially in America, is its inventiveness—its many variations within its long-standing traditions. As Passover approaches, some families will bring out a variety of Haggadahs; others will revise the old or write new ones for the events of this year. These two books illustrate different facets of that ongoing ingenuity in Jewish American life—neither of them, shockingly enough, a true Haggadah.

Kurshan takes the traditional "Four Questions" that drive the retelling of the story of the Exodus into 23 languages and gives a short account of the fate of the Jews in the country where each of these languages is spoken. This touchingly illustrated book is ideal for demonstrating the global reach of the Jewish Diaspora. Rips, a bookseller and longtime Seder host, collects anecdotes, observations, memories, and jokes—many of them irreverently hilarious—from the likes of Rita Rudner and Rabbi Harold Kushner. The book underscores the humor, the unpredictability, and the love that have shaped so many Seders for so many generations and includes a helpful glossary of terms for the Passover-unenlightened. For most collections.

This is the fourth edition of Matlins and Magida's important and useful guide to being a visitor to the worship spaces and events of almost every faith and denomination in America. The only things brought up to date are the contacts and links, including web sources. Buy wherever previous collections saw use.

This charming seasonal worship guide by Svanoe, associate pastor of a Lutheran church in Sioux Falls, SD, differs from the many others like it in that it includes recipes. After all, if a best-selling novel can be crafted from quilt patterns, why not a liturgy from recipes? Different breads—with different degrees of leavening—tell or reinforce different lessons. But Svanoe's errand into the senses does not end there; he wants worshippers to engage with sight, sound, touch, and taste for a full experience both of the sorrows and the joys of Lent and Easter.

Jesus has worn so many masks—country boy, unacknowledged king, sex magician—that it can hardly surprise us to see him don another. Capps (pastoral theology, Princeton Theological Seminary) selects several of Jesus's "healing miracles" and makes of them something not beyond the order of nature but prodigies of psychological and psychiatric insight and healing. Capps is necessarily reliant on Freud's definitions of hysteria—broadly rejected by his own profession—so his analysis has a shaky foundation. Yet the kernel of his idea is striking, and this provocative study may give rise to others with better grounding.

With all the energy of an iconoclast of 1859 or 1927, Gold has pitched himself against hyperliteralism in the ranks of Orthodox Judaism, which, unbeknownst to the greater public, is as likely as conservative Islam or Fundamentalist Christianity to take the words of its scripture not just as holy writ but as bare, literal, and inerrant fact. Gold patiently explores not just scriptural literalism in Judaism but the notion of Mosaic authorship and "hidden codes" in the Torah and concludes with a vision of an illusion-free sense of religion. For larger collections.

Novelist Cohen, who also writes for the New York Times and Time Out New York, sensitively explores the link between non-attachment and de-tachment in this sober and thoughtful life manual for Buddhist readers. He makes use not just of Buddhist precepts but also of his own experience and humor to show how conceptualizing the negative emotions that accompany divorce in a less "attached" way can help one deal with it differently.

Ford's credentials include 30 years of service with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, as well as frequent appearances on Graham's Hour of Decision radio broadcast. A spirit of ecumenism informs Ford's gracefully written guide to thoughtful prayer and attentiveness to God's voice, based on the very ancient Christian ritual of praying the canonical Hours. Each section is accompanied by a short reflection on "One Who Paid Attention," including the likes of Henri Nouwen, C.S. Lewis, and Ford's dog Wrangler. Ford includes an appendix with suggested prayers for observing the Hours. For most collections.

Cohost of the television show Aspiring Women, Hammond continues her stream of motivational books with a special appeal to African American women. In prior works, Hammond talked about love and adversity from a Christian perspective; in this work, her emphasis is on the nuts and bolts of a successful life, using simple biblically based principles. The result should appeal to African Americans and non-African Americans alike.

Rabbi Hirsch has written a breezy and accessible guide through life from a Jewish perspective that is light on Hebrew Scripture and examples from Jewish history or tradition. Instead, Hirsch emphasizes common sense, resilience, and humor as guides while invoking Jewish sensibility throughout. She acknowledges that Judaism understands life as messy and insusceptible to easy answers or solutions while resting on God's joy in our presence in the world.

Vedanta, a still little-known school of Hindu thought, may be said to have reached its apogee in the first quarter of the 20th century. Modern Vedanta, as interpreted by Swami Vivekananda, emphasizes peace between and among various sects and religions, as well as meditational practices rooted in ancient Hinduism. Hourihan attempts to reintroduce Vedanta to the public, reinvigorating its ideas for a modern audience.

Langford, director of communications for the Order of Jesuits in Chicago, uses a persisting metaphor of gardening in this guide to personal spirituality meant to "prepare the soil of our lives to receive and nurture God's seeds of faith"; this book is certainly Paraclete Press at its lightest, but charmingly so.

It's not true, of course: there are atheists in foxholes, and the horrors of war are as likely to shatter faith as to reinforce it. But the importance of this book is that it bears witness from the Iraq front from the perspective of a minister. McLaughlin is a Lutheran pastor who has served as a navy chaplain since 1992; this is a collection of prayers, reflections, memories, and observations from that increasingly unpopular military front. A crucial contribution to religious and spiritual perspectives on the current "war on terror."

It is a kind of dirty secret in Judaism today that while many are privately dismayed by the policies of a succession of Israeli governments, almost all, in public, are loud in their support. Marqusee's (Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s) thoughtful book blends family memoir and history to bring Marqusee to his own well-informed reservations about Israel and knee-jerk Zionism of any kind. An important book that may be a difficult but salubrious encounter for many Jewish (but also Christian) readers.

Moffitt, founder and president of the Life Balance Institute and regular contributor to Yoga Journal, competently addresses the core of the Buddhist message—suffering and the delivery of human beings from suffering—for a contemporary English-speaking audience. He views Buddha's Four Noble Truths as "specific, practical life instructions."

This is an unusual attempt to bring men to a conservative Christian understanding of self, family, and world through a very contemporary sense of humor. Moore, founder and president of Two Cities Ministries, recognizes the perils of sexual temptation, materialism, work, and what he calls "the shrinking American soul," and his first line of defense is "the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." His book should have a strong appeal to men floundering for a Christian grasp of the world or Christian men struggling to be good husbands and fathers.

In his latest book, Moore addresses what might be termed the question of vocation—something beyond mere work or tasks—as one of the deep, important, and shaping mysteries of life. It is not easy to work out exactly what Moore is saying here, except that finding a life's work is challenging and important. While Life's Work is not written with the urgency that made Moore's boffo best seller Care of the Soul so engaging, readers will respond to his consistent warmth.

Moss's titular "things" are dreams, coincidence, and imagination. Contemporary science has nothing good to say about coincidence, but some readers will be pleased and inspired by Moss's (Conscious Dreaming) reinterpretation of the world. The book is aimed at those who, like Moss, believe in the power of dreams and fate.

Rigby (Raising Respectful Children in a Disrespectful World) tackles an important and little-recognized problem: how to raise unselfish children despite the narcissism of our culture. Whether or not all readers will be able to follow her solutions (e.g., a backyard Bible club), she may be in the vanguard of an important issue.

Despite its notably unwinning title, this little book has a definite place on the library shelf. Singer, a psychotherapist and "seeker of truth," has assembled a variety of quotations and written meditations and "real-life applications" for them. What makes his book interesting is that—in an Asian context—the quotations are pan-cultural; that is, Chinese, Buddhist, Japanese, and Hindu sources stand side by side, implying, probably rightly, that all of Asian thought, considered together, is characteristically different from Western ways of thinking.

In Japan and China, certain kinds of athletic and military practices are absolutely continuous with self-knowledge and spiritual awareness. No rediscovered classic has enjoyed greater currency than Sun Tzu's Art of War, which has been repackaged as a kind of ancient business manual. Skylight Paths has restored Sun's place among spiritual classics of the East with this fresh, new, annotated translation of a timely and perennially popular classic for a nonscholarly audience.

Tenzin-Dolma's previous book, Natural Mandalas, focused on finding peace in the beauty of nature. Her new book is bursting with lively color in an attractive large format; her mandalas are not at all traditional but may delight many readers, whether new or experienced meditators.