"When God calls attention, explanation is seldom what we get. What is offered instead is conversation and challenge," notes Patrick Henry, executive director of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at Saint John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota. In this field guide to the grace of God, the witty author presents his defense of mystery and the art of not-knowing. Although Christian doctrine pulses through Henry's bloodstream, he refuses to salute certainty, tidy explanations, or unquestioned orthodoxy.
"The free play of imagination tells us more about God than do rules and precepts," writes the author, who reflects on the writings of some of his favorite authors, including Lewis Carroll, Robert Bolt, Vaclav Havel, Milan Kundera, and Dr. Seuss. Henry affirms the spiritual practices of attention, being present, hospitality, silence, and openness as he ponders the multiple meanings of hope, prayer, community, friendship, Jesus, inter-religious dialogue, feminism, and the Other. This well-read ironic Christian opens our eyes to God's kingdom of surprises and manages to reconfirm our sense of faith as an adventure.
