The Life of Meaning

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The Life of Meaning Pub. Date: 4/1/2008 Publisher: Seven Stories Press

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Overview

Extraordinary people will say extraordinary things, especially when it is Bob Abernethy and his team at PBS’ Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly doing the asking. The Life of Meaning presents fifty-nine contributors speaking candidly about their search for meaning in their own personal lives, their experience of God, and for some, the struggle to reconcile faith and doubt. They include Jimmy Carter, Francis Collins, the Dalai Lama, Robert Franklin, Irving Greenberg, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Harold Kushner, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, Thomas Lynch, Martin Marty, Mark Noll, Rachel Remen, Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Brown Taylor, Studs Terkel, Thich Nhat Hanh, Phyllis Tickle, Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier, Marianne Williamson, and many others.

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, which Bob Abernethy conceived for PBS in 1997 and anchors, has been described as “the best spot on the television landscape to take in the broad view of the spiritual dimension of American life” by The Christian Science Monitor. In The Life of Meaning, Abernethy, co-author William Bole, and the staff of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly turn their attention to making a book that asks all the big questions—and elicit the most surprising answers from a who’s-who of today’s serious religious and spiritual thinkers from across a spectrum of faiths and denominations.

Bob Abernethy is the executive editor and host of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Before launching the series, he had served as a correspondent for NBC News for more than four decades.

William Bole’s articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Commonweal magazines.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

For the last 11 years, Abernethy has been host of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, a PBS show focusing on how people's spiritual/religious beliefs guide their lives. Here, Abernethy, coauthor Bole, and the NewsWeekly staff have gathered essays by 59 individuals who have appeared as guests on the program. Some are famous, like the Dalai Lama and Jimmy Carter, while others are more obscure scholars and practitioners. All their essays are extremely personal and written from the heart. Even well-known religious scholars such as Martin Marty (emeritus, Univ. of Chicago) and Diana Eck (Harvard Univ.), who could have dazzled us with dense, academic theological prose, instead speak quietly and earnestly of their relationship with God or gods, their beliefs concerning good and evil, the place of humans in a spiritual environment, and their ultimate search for meaning in this chaotic universe. This is not for the serious theological thinker, but for the common layperson wanting to read a thinking and feeling person's opinions, doubts, and concerns about the deep mysteries in our spiritual lives. Best read beside a fireplace on a cold, wintry night; recommended for public libraries.
—Glenn Masuchika

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781583228296
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Publication date: 4/1/2008
Pages: 448
Sales rank: 338,181
Product dimensions: 6.74 (w) x 9.18 (h) x 1.14 (d)

Meet the Author

Bob Abernethy is the executive editor and host of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, which he developed and created for PBS in 1997. William Bole is a journalist whose articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Commonweal magazine. He is a research fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Foreword   Tom Brokaw     xi
Acknowledgments     xiii
Introduction   Bob Abernethy     1
The Meaning Makers     5
Limning the Rites of Death   Thomas Lynch     9
Staring Down the Gods of War   Chris Hedges     17
Exposing the Spiritual Crisis of Modern Medicine   Rachel Remen     25
More Than Is Dreamt of in Your Theologies   Marilynne Robinson   John Polkinghorne     31
Naming the Real   Marianne Williamson   Tilden Edwards     37
Discovering Things Nobody Knew Before but God   Francis Collins     41
Waltzing with the God of Chaos   Barbara Brown Taylor     47
The Meaning of Mud   Phyllis Tickle     53
Evil and Suffering     57
A Faith Difficult to Understand   Menachem Daum     61
Easing the Divine Suffering   Irving Greenberg     67
Evil Acts, Sacred Places   Edward Linenthal     75
Like Living in the Book of Job   Thomas Lynch     87
Damning the Disease, Not (Ultimately) the Deity   William Abernethy     91
Smells Like Hope   Madeleine L'Engle     95
Redeeming the Devil   Desmond Tutu     101
Hope Dies Last   Studs Terkel     105
Prayer and Meditation     111
The World's Prayers   Carol   Philip Zaleski     115
Through the Valley of the Shadow   Harold Kushner     123
The Former President on Unanswered Prayer   Jimmy Carter     129
Warming Oneself Before the Glow of God   Desmond Tutu     133
Talking to God Straight and Angry   Stanley Hauerwas     135
On Wintry Spirituality and Napping   Martin Marty     139
Praise Every Three Hours   Phyllis Tickle     143
The Jesus Prayer and Praying with Icons   Frederica Mathewes-Green     147
The Hum of the Universe, in a Minor Key   Robert Wuthnow     151
Finding God's Presence in Darkness   Ellwood "Bud" Kieser     155
"I'm Spiritual, Not Religious"     159
On the Altar of Consciousness   Marilyn Mcguire     163
Unlearning Religion   Marianne Williamson     171
Blessing the Doubters   Barbara Brown Taylor     177
With or Without Religion   Phyllis Tickle     181
We're Spiritual and Religious   Tilden Edwards   Tina Brown     185
Religion Makes Hospice Calls   Martin Marty     191
The Good, without God   Rushworth Kidder     195
Being Religious     203
Catholicism
All Is Gift   Eileen Durkin     207
Eileen's Uncle and His Catholic Imagination   Andrew Greeley     217
Stuff Counts   George Weigel     223
Evangelicalism
Is God Still the Center?   Mark Noll     229
The Inerrant, Infallible Word of God   Richard Land     235
The Genius of Evangelicalism   Randall Balmer     241
Who Is Winning-Evangelicals or American Culture?   Alan Wolfe     245
Mainline Protestantism
God Is Not Going to Whomp You   Martin Marty     249
Vital Signs   Diana Butler Bass     257
The African-American Church
Safe Harbors and Defiant Spirituality   Robert Franklin     263
Judaism
The Miracle of Existence   Blu Greenberg     269
Reading the Book of Our Life   Alan Lew   Abraham Lubin   Joel Tessler      279
The Soul Is Hovering   Rochel Berman     285
Islam
Bearing Witness to the One God   Seyyed Hossein Nasr     289
The Hajj   Abdul Alim Mubarak     297
Buddhism
A Message from the Dalai Lama   The Dalai Lama     305
Being Mindful and Engaged   Thich Nhat Hanh     309
The Smaller Sufferings   Helen Tworkov     315
Hinduism
Many Deities, One God   Uma Mysorekar     323
Paths Up the Mountain     331
The Measure of Diversity   Diana Eck     335
Many Paths, Many Ways   Alan Wolfe     343
Evangelizing by Deed   Jimmy Carter     347
Our Great Challenge   Seyyed Hossein Nasr     359
The Passions of Jerusalem   David Hartman     363
Lives Well Lived     367
Where the Weak and the Strong Dance Together   Jean Vanier     371
"Oh, Annie, Whatever"   Anne Lamott     379
No Return   Scott Neeson     389
Changing Your Social Footprint   Rajiv Vinnakota     395
Healing Body and Spirit   Scott Morris     403
The Cathedral of Charity   Billy Shore     409
Listen to Your Life   Frederick Buechner     415
Raging against Boredom   William Sloane Coffin     421
Photo Credits     427
Index of Contributors     432
About the Editors     429

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Anonymous

Posted July 23, 2008

Thoughtful Reflections on Life. . .

A thoughtful and inspiring collection of essays. This book made me think about the big questions - the presence of God in our everyday lives, the nature of Divine Grace, and how great men and women characterize their relationship with Higher Powers. 'The Life of Meaning' speaks to me on many levels, and helps me find balance in the ever- changing, perpetually confusing, and suffering-ridden world we live in.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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