Radiance: A Spiritual Memoir of Evelyn Underhill

by Bernard Bangley (Compiler)

Overview

Evelyn Underhill is widely regarded as one of the greatest Christian mystics. This compilation of published writings and private journals offers a candid glimpse of her inner life, from the rare spiritual awareness that she possessed as a child, to the intense curiosity and intelligence that made her one of the most respected writers and thinkers of her day. Possibly most moving, this volume also reveals Underhill's profound mid-life spiritual struggle. For the many admirers of Evelyn Underhill, and for anyone who enjoys reading accounts of the spiritual lives of others, this book presents a vivid portrait of a life that was truly radiant.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557253552
Publisher:	Paraclete Press
Publication date:	10/01/2015
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.48(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.73(d)

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
1	Early writings 1892-1914
	Personal Diary	3
	The Gray World	5
	Mysticism	10
	Correspondence and Poetry	43
	The Mystic Way	44
2	Applied spirituality 1915-1924
	Practical Mysticism	65
	Poetry	68
	Addresses and Articles	71
	Personal Journal and Correspondence	73
	Essays	86
3	Understanding mysticism 1925-1931
	Mystics of the Church	131
	Personal Journal	132
	Concerning the Inner Life	134
	Correspondence	149
	Journal	153
	Essay	156
4	Mature insight 1932-1941
	Personal Journal and Correspondence	167
	The Spiritual Life	169
	Personal Note	184
	Worship	185
	Final Retreat	195
	Correspondence	202
	Abba	204
	Last Letters	212
	Essay	214
Appendix	A longer excerpt from The Gray World	217
	Endnotes	231
	Sources	235

Editorial Reviews

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) is perhaps best known for her 1911 classic, Mysticism, continuously in print to the present day. An English laywoman with no theological education, she wrote more than 30 spirituality books, lectured to Oxford scholars and Church of England clergy, led spiritual retreats and encouraged ecumenism decades before women began to assume religious leadership. Bangley has selected excerpts from her published writings, journals, letters and speeches to show Underhill's personal spiritual development as she moved from cool academic reflection through struggle and doubt to settled trust: "I do feel that trusting God must mean trusting Him through thick and thin." One reason for Underhill's popularity may have been her view that mysticism was for everybody, in all circumstances: "The true mystic quest may as well be fulfilled in the market as in the cloister, by Joan of Arc on the battlefield as by Simeon Stylites on his pillar." Hers was no self-absorbed, feel-good spirituality, however: "Any spiritual view which focuses attention on ourselves, and puts the human creature with its small ideas and adventures in the center foreground, is dangerous till we recognize its absurdity." Her God was transcendent: "a Reality independent of the worshipper, which is always more or less deeply colored by mystery, and which is there first." Despite its subtitle, this book is not really a memoir; Underhill wrote in the first person only in her journals and, in any case, distrusted subjective experience. It is nevertheless a captivating introduction to one of the 20th century's most appealing spiritual writers. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Underhill (1875-1941) is generally acknowledged as one of the great authorities on mysticism; her 1907 book Mysticism is still a widely used classic in the field. Retired Presbyterian minister Bangley has assembled an anthology of Underhill's writings that form an oblique spiritual biography of this extremely reticent Englishwoman; it is as much the story of a soul as anything in English. Mysticism, in Underhill's life as well as in her fine writings, was at once normal, complex, and demanding: "No love without pain." Slight alterations in Underhill's own syntax and diction, made for readability, prevent the volume from making a scholarly as well as popular contribution, but many readers should still be pleased with this primer. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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