A Widespread Hunger: Traditions of Christian Spirituality Series Index

Nowadays, in the Western world, there is a widespread hunger for spirituality in all its forms. This is not confined to traditional religious people, let alone to regular churchgoers. The desire for resources to sustain the spiritual quest has led many people to seek wisdom in unfamiliar places.

So Philip Sheldrake begins his preface to each of the books in the Traditions of Christian Spirituality series in the early through late 2000s. Sheldrake laments that Christianity, with a few exceptions, is not seen as such a resource. I think for many of us, the lament is more that we ourselves have trouble seeing Christianity as such a resource. That is part of why I began reading some of this series.

Photo mine, 2016.

The first book of the series I’ve read is Alan Bartlett’s A Passionate Balance: The Anglican Tradition. I will be posting about it on 2 October 2016 and each Sunday after that through the month. I have a lot to say about Bartlett’s Balance; I can’t promise to have as much to say about the others.

In the meantime, I’d like to remind you that I’ve posted a schedule already and that I would be happy for guest posts, if anyone wants to join in.

Index

Alan Bartlett, A Passionate Balance: The Anglican Tradition

1. “The Golden Mediocrity”: Bartlett’s Anglican Tradition
2. Anglican Orthodoxy
3. Anglican Reason
4. Anglican Aesthetics
5. Anglican Crisis – Postponed until I have something worth saying

Susan J. White, The Spirit of Worship: The Liturgical Tradition

1. An Uninviting Invitation: White’s Liturgical Tradition

Michael L. Birkel, Silence and Witness: The Quaker Tradition

1. Open to the Light’s Leading: Birkel’s Quaker Tradition
2. TBA
3. TBA
4. TBA

Steven Chase, Contemplation and Compassion: The Victorine Tradition

1. TBA

John Anthony McGuckin, Standing in God’s Holy Fire: The Byzantine Tradition

1. TBA

Esther de Waal, The Way of Simplicity: The Cistercian Tradition

1. TBA

C. Arnold Snyder, Following in the Footsteps of Christ: The Anabaptist Tradition

1. TBA

David Lonsdale, Eyes to See, Ears to Hear: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality

1. TBA

FtPA: Constructing Narratives in Charles W. Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grapevine”

There is some writing from my previous degrees with which I am sufficiently happy that I might share it in a From the Personal Archives series any month I don’t run the Revisiting series. As with last month’s offering, this piece is from Michael Snediker’s 2008-2009 undergraduate course at Queen’s University called American Literature: The Fabulous and the Mundane. And as with that piece, the paper makes more sense alongside the text—Charles W. Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grapevine” in The Conjure Woman and Other Tales (1899)—but I think this one reads perfectly well even if you know nothing about the original. The last paragraph betrays a lot of my own theoretical preoccupations at the time.

Source: Ernest Adams at flic.kr/p/4tw5EY

Monthly Marvel: Soft Rime

On the first Saturday of each month for at least the next little while I intend to share here one of the Weekly Wonders from that previous project. Today I’d like to share soft rime, a much gentler winter phenomenon than I expect to soon experience.

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Soft Rime

This week’s meteorological phenomenon is soft rime.

Source: Kabacchi at flic.kr/p/7FTwFa. This user has a lot of photographs of soft rime.