"The call to mystical openness is echoed across millennia of humanity's wisdom; it is the call to discover a unitary point of view that holds the promise of a more just and peaceful planet," wrote Beverly Lanzetta in Emerging Heart: Global Spirituality and the Sacred. We were so impressed with its spiritual depth and breadth that we gave it an award as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2007.
Today Lanzetta is a theologian and spiritual teacher and author of seven books. She has been guiding others in the universal call to contemplation for almost 40 years. Nine Jewels of Night gives an account of her spiritual journey and covers a time frame from when she was kicked out of Sunday School as a little girl because she asked questions about the inconsistencies of the Baltimore Catechism to her creation and leadership of The Community of a New Monastic Way.
After following a wayward path as a college student, wife and mother, Lanzetta is awed and transformed by a series of mystical experiences in her twenty-ninth year. They set her on a new course of divine love and a kinship with all religions. Lanzetta vividly conveys the doubts, the roadblocks, and the tensions of letting God turn one's life around and letting go of our plans. All this becomes possible and even helpful when seen from a mystical perspective:
"Mysticism was an innate capacity within each person to access the deeper meaning of life. It was the fruit of prayer and the natural consciousness of those who ventured into the deep self."
Lanzetta finds fulfillment as a spiritual director and as a teacher of contemplation. Thanks to her experiences, she is able to help others work with silence, solitude, devotion, trusting God and walking a path of not knowing and humility.
