502 - The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring

The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring

By Parker J. Palmer

Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1990. 157 Pp. $15.95.

It was perhaps inevitable that following the resurgence of interest in personal and corporate spirituality during the last decade, voices advocating the understanding of non-contemplative approaches to spiritual expression would emerge. Parker J. Palmer's investigation of the active side of spirituality addresses those for whom both classical and contemporary contemplative approaches to spiritual exercise have proved fruitless.

Mr. Palmer provides his understanding of action as risk and of self-revelation and contemplation as the abandonment of illusion, then reflects in depth on six stories that present spirituality as the struggle to embrace the holy dimension of personal activity. The stories include Thomas Merton's translations of two poems from The Way of Chuang Tzu, Martin Buber's retelling of an eastern European Hasidic story, and three

504 - The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring

Jesus stories from the New Testament.

His reflection upon this material presents an illustrative rather than a linear argument for a spirituality of intentional activity. If these reflections are uneven, they are also, at times, challenging and insightful.

Douglas G. Scott, St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Radnor, Pa.