252 - A Cry of Absence: Reflections on the Winter of the Heart

A Cry of Absence:
Reflections on the Winter of the Heart
By Martin E. Marty
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982. 172 pp. $11.95.

Prayer, as any believer knows, is a seasonal relationship. On most journeys of the spirit there is the scorching passion of summer when God is close

254 - A Cry of Absence: Reflections on the Winter of the Heart

and our commitment, intense. But there are also crisp, certain, and energetic responses of fall, as well as the clean, reinvigorating promises of recovery in spring.

Marty writes in this book of the chaste and chilly winter climate of prayer that is paradoxically pervaded by a quiet, affirming presence, sometimes deafening in its absence. Marty writes without frills and without sentimentality of loss, separation, grief, and pain, while at the same time holding on to God's promise of fidelity that does not deceive or mock our disposition toward hope. He uses as his springboard Karl Ralmer's image of a "wintry sort of spirituality" that is aptly suggestive of the endurance and survival of the heart under extreme conditions. The Psalms reflect this truth in excelsis and are a major focus of the book.

Marty knows, by some inner verifier of these things, that distance' not death, is the enemy of intimacy. Fortunately, his book refuses to surrender to the darkness of distance. Instead it maintains in text and illustrations (Susan Teumer Marty) a luminous and healing quality while facing, head-on, the experience of suffering and death. It is vigorous, honest and unmistakably human as it struggles to come to terms with the fairness and gracious favor of God.

Doris Donnelly
St. John's University, New York City
and Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.