William Claassen is a journalist who presently lives in Columbia, Missouri. "Your first language is not English but silence," a friend once told him. In this fascinating account of his ten-year odyssey visiting monasteries around the world, Claassen spends time at Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, and Sufi communities in eleven countries. And he goes not as a tourist but as a participant in their devotional life of ritual and practice. Claassen's photographs and interviews are also included.
The author is intrigued by a daily ritual of libations in a Jain pilgrimage temple in India; the rigors of physical and mental tests in a Tendai Buddhist training center in Kyoto; the adoration of folk art paintings in a Coptic monastery in the Egyptian desert; the chanting of the Benedictine monks in Spain's Monasterio de Santo Domingo; and the whirling of the dervishes in Galata Mevlevi Tekke in Istanbul, Turkey.
Claassen's experiences only serve to deepen his appreciation for "the bigness of God." He finds much in common with these monks of different religions who share a love of solitude, participation in daily prayers, the frequent chanting of scriptures, and the veneration of religious figures. After his visit with the Sufis, they said to him in parting, "May your time be happy." He learned that the word "time" is symbolic of the union with Allah.