Maria Jaoudi teaches religious studies at California State University and is the author of Christian and Islamic Spirituality. She has an amazing and totally accessible overview of mysticism that crosses religious and cultural borders. She draws on her eclectic knowledge of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, and Christianity to explore the language of mysticism, which she calls "the Rosetta Stone needed to decipher the meaning behind the symbols and events of one's life."
With great courage and elan, the author asks, "Why is there so much fear, so much denial, of the God-within-us experience in Western religions?" A good question given the Judeo-Christian tradition that each human being is created in the image and likeness of God. In order to shed light on this theme, Jaoudi discusses the mystical purviews of Meister Eckhart, Gregory of Nyssa, and Bonaventure.
The author closes the book with "a multimedia exposition on mysticism evoked through music, poetry, and painting." Here we see that spirituality and the arts bring us into the presence of God and give us ample signs that imagination, play, eros, and creativity are some of the best gifts of grace.
