Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness & Light

Jon M. Sweeney is an award-winning author and independent scholar. Currently, Jon is religion editor at Monkfish Book Publishing, editor of Living City magazine, and book review editor at SpiritualityandPractice.com. He speaks at literary and religious conferences, in churches and synagogues, and at independent bookstores. He is a Catholic married to a rabbi, and their interfaith marriage has been profiled in national media. He has been interviewed by the Dallas Morning News and The Irish Catholic, on radio with NPR and the BBC, and on television for CBS Saturday Morning, as well as NBC’s The Morning Blend and CBS Sunday Morning in Milwaukee.Jon’s books on Franciscan spirituality have sold a quarter million copies. He’s also author of thirty other books on spirituality, mysticism, biography, and memoir, including Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart, coauthored with Mark S. Burrows (Hampton Roads, 2017); Thomas Merton: An Introduction to His Life, Teachings, and Practices (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2021); and Sit in the Sun: And Other Lessons in the Spiritual Wisdom of Cats (Broadleaf, 2023). The Pope Who Quit (Doubleday/Image, 2014) has sold 50,000+ copies and was optioned by HBO.

Named one of Spirituality and Practice’s Best Spiritual Books of 2023  “Sweeney and Burrows, in poems that are as elegant as they are scholarly, revoice Meister Eckhart’s grounding and expansive instructions to ‘seek the light that shines / out of the darkness.’”—Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet and host of Poetry Unbound, from On Being StudiosMeister Eckhart is one of the greatest of Christian mystics, but because of his depth he can be challenging to read. Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows unlock the poetry in his words to allow his light to shine. What Coleman Barks has done for Rumi, they have done for Eckhart—making his insight accessible and his wisdom sing.”—Carl McColman, author of The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Eternal Heart“Jon M. Sweeney, an independent scholar and Spirituality & Practice’s Contributing Editor for Books and New Media, and Mark S. Burrows, a poet, translator, and professor of religion and literature at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences in Bochum, Germany, have taken up the challenge of bringing Eckhart’s thought to contemporary audiences. They don’t simplify it (as some seekers might want them to do); instead they identify key themes and present them through inspiring and encouraging poetry. Eckhart was not a poet, but his ideas are very suited to the genre.“Sweeney and Burrows call these poems ‘re-voicings of Eckhart’s thought drawing on key images, phrases, and ideas found in his writings.’ At the end of the book, they provide extensive notes identifying the specific sources behind each poem. This is an invaluable addition for both scholars and intrigued seekers.“We can only give you a taste of Eckhart in a review. And you may find, as we did, that the best way to approach it is to simply open to a page at random and spend some time with it.”—Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, SpiritualityAndPractice.com