Writing lives

Christian Century, May 31, 2003 by Joseph Cunneen

The author sees an ongoing value in the work of his chosen writers even though he recognizes that what they believed may appear foreign to contemporary readers: "We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. Every religion is one among many." This awareness makes me wish he had made more use of Merton's pioneering steps in interreligious dialogue. His book is a major success, however, because he shows that, for his four subjects, "The way to knowledge, and self-knowledge, is through pilgrimage ... The story of their lives, then, is also its meaning and its implication for ours. They saw religious experience out before them. They read their way towards it. They believed it. They lived it. They made it their own. With us in mind, they put it in writing."

Joseph Cunneen, cofounder and longtime editor of the interreligious quarterly Cross Currents. He is movie reviewer for the National Catholic Reporter and author of the just-published Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film (Continuum).