Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark

James K. A. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin University. He is the award-winning author of a numerous books, including You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit and On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts. He lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

“Smith writes that, far from being spiritually vapid, [contemporary] art can lead viewers to a ‘contemplative posture that might make us open to the mystical.’ Abstract and experimental art, he argues, is innovative, meaningful, and conducive to the sort of habits that can bring people closer to God.”—Luis Parrales, The Atlantic“In this thoughtful and finely written book, James K. A. Smith brings together two fields that are rarely considered together: Christian mysticism and contemporary art, literature, and film. Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark articulates the author’s struggle to make sense of his life as a philosopher and practising Christian—though ultimately as a suffering, confused human being. Drawing on a wide range of source materials, Smith skillfully weaves these diverse threads into a passionate and engaging narrative.”—Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddha, Socrates and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times“As a philosopher whose business is to know, James K. A. Smith invites us into a different way of being—the experience of unknowing. In Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark, Smith shares his unknowable childhood experience of abandonment by his father, and his gentle book teaches liberation found in the down-to-earth contemplative wisdom of the medieval masterpiece The Cloud of Unknowing and of many other sages. May we join Smith in being vulnerable, open, beloved by God, and filled with wonder and loving.”—Carmen Acevedo Butcher, poet, core faculty member at Center for Action and Contemplation, and award-winning translator of The Cloud of Unknowing“We long for clarity and for comfort, and many books promise it to us. They cannot deliver. James K. A. Smith invites us to embrace mystery, darkness, solitude, and silence, and with all that the hope of true peace.”—Zena Hitz, author of Lost In Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life“This is a deeply moving and invaluable book. Smith is known for his intellectual clarity and sound reasoning, but this book also exhibits heartfelt honesty, vulnerability, and courage. . . . It transforms and transfigures philosophy. Smith takes us into the realm of mysticism and darkness to be met with the Real. As an artist, I truly appreciated his path toward the ‘gift of the unknown.’”—Makoto Fujimura, author of Art Is: A Journey into the Light

• PrefaceIntroduction: Journey Into the Cloud of UnknowingChapter 1: Learning to Befriend MysteryChapter 2: Awakening through SolitudeChapter 3: Listening to SilenceChapter 4: Dwelling in DarknessChapter 5: Welcoming WonderEpilogue: Wisdom as Wondering NotesAcknowledgementsIndex