In Message from the Sparrows, Taylor Morris, who teaches "Introduction to Sufism" at Franklin Pierce College, uses stories and walking tours to illustrate that truth comes to us by indirection and that the imagination must be constantly in motion. For Morris, the Sufi path centers on love, reading the book of nature, examining everyday experiences, transcending orthodoxies, being free, and reveling in the search for truth as a lifelong quest.

Message from the Sparrows is filled with Sufi stories that startle and mystify his students. Morris helps them see that spirituality means waking up, seeing connections, digging deeper, and being liberated from fixed ideas and notions. "He who tastes, knows" is a Sufi aphorism that turns education upside down and makes our own experience the taproot for wisdom. I wish there were a thousand courses like this in American colleges so that the crazy wisdom of Rumi, Walt Whitman, and the Sufi dervishes could enable students to see their lives from a different angle!