John S. Dunne - Böcker

In The City of the Gods, John S. Dunne traces humanity's political and social mythologies from ancient Sumer to the present, showing how they reflect the diverse responses of each era to the inevitability of death.

In The City of the Gods, John S. Dunne traces humanity's political and social mythologies from ancient Sumer to the present, showing how they reflect the diverse responses of each era to the inevitability of death.

This powerful exploration of spiritual longing is the story of two parallel journeys. One is the author's account of his five-day riverboat trip up the Amazon and his discovery of the tiny Church of the Poor Devil, whose members revealed a spiritual wealth in the midst of abject poverty.The other is Dunne's own spiritual quest and his "passing over" from a personal religion concerned with the satisfaction of his individual needs to the religion of the poor. In sharing the life of the church's people and their transcendence of the misery of their human condition, Dunne experiences a greater awareness of the human essence, which redirects his relation of material needs and brings him to a "oneness" with humanity and himself. The story of this journey becomes a compelling metaphor for Christianity.At a religious festival, Dunne witnesses the people's rejoicing in a simplicity that encourages them to follow the heart's desire for God. An awareness of God's presence frees them from the complex, material concerns that so soften beget despair. By acknowledging the truth of human misery and the heart's desire, Dunne believes we too can walk vertically through a horizontal world governed by materialism and misunderstanding, and thus, find our place at the intersection of time and eternity.

"I call this book The Homing Spirit, thinking of the anguish of not knowing where home is, and the hope and joy of the spirit finding its true home. It is possible, I learned, to have a direction even though you feel lost and don't know where you are. As I understand it, coming home for the spirit means coming to peace. My own quest of peace, as I tell of it here, takes the form of three pilgrimages to Jerusalem. No doubt, calling Jerusalem 'the city of joy. Still, I did find a way to peace there in conversations with Jews and Christians and Muslims.On my first journey there, 'a pilgrimage of the mind' as I call it, I found peace of mind in the sense of a reality greater than ourselves, in going beyond 'I think, therefore I am' to the great 'I am' of the burning bush and the Gospel of John. On my second, 'a pilgrimage of the heart,' I found peace of heart in restless desire becoming prayer, in contemplative insight into the unquiet 'imagination of the heart.' On my third, 'a pilgrimage of the soul,' I found peace of soul in living in touch with God, in becoming so lonely for God. So lonesome for human beings, that I was able to be caught up in life and light and love. As it turned out, I found the home of the spirit in a life larger than life." —John S. Dunne

"John Dunne writes with intelligence, style, grace, and sure and discerning spiritual insight. Like all writers of really good spiritual theology, Dunne never betrays his subject matter with the kind of pious posturing or psycho-babble gimmickry that too often passes for 'spiritual writing.' His prose is crisp without being dense or rattling. His theological sensitivity is alert to nuance without becoming trapped into mere jargon. His care for the heart of authentic spirituality, like Henri Nouwen's, is steady and believable.Dunne chooses the classical religious metaphor of the 'journey' and invites his readers to join him in a journey into solitude and back again into the human circle. He insists that we accept as guides in this journey the great spiritual masters of the Eastern and Western traditions. Thus in reading Reasons of the Heart, we find ourselves in the presence of some of the best insights of John's Gospel, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Buber, the Buddha, and Jesus. Dunne skillfully invites the reader to 'pass over' to a religious and theological vision of God and of our common humanity in our journey to authentic spirituality. Like Whitehead, Dunne believes that religion, above all, has to do with what an individual does with his/her solitariness. More than Whitehead, Dunne is concerned not only to have the individual enter solitariness, but also finally to leave it behind and rejoin the human community." —David Tracy, The Critic

Using the method of spiritual reading, lectio divina or "divine reading" as it is called in monasteries, John S. Dunne sets out his interpretation of the evangelists, especially John in Reading the Gospel. Reading the Gospels, according to Dunne, means passing over into the relation of Jesus with his God, the God he calls Abba in prayer, and then coming back from that with a changed vision of life and death. If I pass over into the relation of Jesus with God, then Jesus disappears from in front of me and I find myself in relation to what Jesus calls "my God and your God." When I come back to myself, I see my life in terms of his life and my death in terms of his death and resurrection, and I am able to say with Paul, "I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me." "We read to know that we are not alone," Dunne says, quoting from Shadowlands, and we read the Gospels to know that God is with us. "I believe in God-with-us," he says, as a personal creed summing up the Gospels. He ends with a kind of lyrical commentary that he calls Songlines of the Gospel, twenty-one short lyrics telling of the basic scenes in the Gospel of John.

Using the method of spiritual reading, lectio divina or "divine reading" as it is called in monasteries, John S. Dunne sets out his interpretation of the evangelists, especially John in Reading the Gospel. Reading the Gospels, according to Dunne, means passing over into the relation of Jesus with his God, the God he calls Abba in prayer, and then coming back from that with a changed vision of life and death. If I pass over into the relation of Jesus with God, then Jesus disappears from in front of me and I find myself in relation to what Jesus calls "my God and your God." When I come back to myself, I see my life in terms of his life and my death in terms of his death and resurrection, and I am able to say with Paul, "I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me." "We read to know that we are not alone," Dunne says, quoting from Shadowlands, and we read the Gospels to know that God is with us. "I believe in God-with-us," he says, as a personal creed summing up the Gospels. He ends with a kind of lyrical commentary that he calls Songlines of the Gospel, twenty-one short lyrics telling of the basic scenes in the Gospel of John.

Dunne shows us how we can, through an examination of our own lives and the lives of great writers and philosophers, become closer to "the face underlying all, that of the compassionate God."A Search for God in Time and Memory is an experiment in religious thought. While Catholic in scope and in historical perspective, it bypasses religious authority and official documents to find its sources in the life experiences of individuals. "It is a search," says John S. Dunne, "which will carry us on quests and journeys through life stories, through hells, purgatories and heavens, through ages of life, through stories of God." The quest begins with an examination of one's own life, with an awareness of patterns of its past and the contingencies of its future. The point of individual departure then is to seek comparison and perspective from the lives of great writers and philosophers, finding resonances between their lives and one's own and returning at last to one's own standpoint. It is in this process of "passing over" that one discovers the greater dimensions of man, those which reach beyond the self and the individual life story. This process is ultimately how man "brings time to mind, how he searches through time and memory, for passing over avails him of the time and memory of others, and coming back leaves his own time and memory enriched." In analyzing the stages of life—childhood, youth, manhood, and age—as they appear in modern autobiography, he discovers beneath these life experiences the possibilities of companionship with God in time and "the face underlying all, that of the compassionate God and the Compassionate Savior."

Dunne shows us how we can, through an examination of our own lives and the lives of great writers and philosophers, become closer to "the face underlying all, that of the compassionate God."A Search for God in Time and Memory is an experiment in religious thought. While Catholic in scope and in historical perspective, it bypasses religious authority and official documents to find its sources in the life experiences of individuals. "It is a search," says John S. Dunne, "which will carry us on quests and journeys through life stories, through hells, purgatories and heavens, through ages of life, through stories of God." The quest begins with an examination of one's own life, with an awareness of patterns of its past and the contingencies of its future. The point of individual departure then is to seek comparison and perspective from the lives of great writers and philosophers, finding resonances between their lives and one's own and returning at last to one's own standpoint. It is in this process of "passing over" that one discovers the greater dimensions of man, those which reach beyond the self and the individual life story. This process is ultimately how man "brings time to mind, how he searches through time and memory, for passing over avails him of the time and memory of others, and coming back leaves his own time and memory enriched." In analyzing the stages of life—childhood, youth, manhood, and age—as they appear in modern autobiography, he discovers beneath these life experiences the possibilities of companionship with God in time and "the face underlying all, that of the compassionate God and the Compassionate Savior."

Based on the Thomas More Lectures John Dunne delivered at Yale University in 1971, Time and Myth analyzes man's confrontation with the inevitability of death in the cultural, personal, and religious spheres, viewing each as a particular kind of myth shaped by the impact of time. With penetrating simplicity the author poses the timeless dilemma of the human condition and seeks to resolve it through stories of adventures, journeys, and voyages inspired by man's encounter with death; stories of childhood, youth, manhood, and age; and, finally, stories of God and of man wrestling with God and the unknown.

Reflections on the common experiences of man as they are revealed in the writings of the Hindu-Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian traditions. In this inter-religious dialogue John Dunne shifts his standpoint to reach a sympathetic understanding of the essential message of the Eastern religions and then returns with new insight into Christianity. Through an examination of figures in various religions, including Gotama, Mohammed, and Gandhi, Dunne explores the possibilities of companionship with God."The holy man of our time, it seems, is not a figure like Gotama or Jesus or Mohammed, a man who could found a world religion, but a figure like Gandhi, a man who passes over by sympathetic understanding from his own religion to other religions and comes back again with new insight to his own. Passing over and coming back, it seems, is the spiritual adventure of our time. It is the adventure I want to undertake and describe in this book."—from the Preface

Reflections on the common experiences of man as they are revealed in the writings of the Hindu-Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian traditions. In this inter-religious dialogue John Dunne shifts his standpoint to reach a sympathetic understanding of the essential message of the Eastern religions and then returns with new insight into Christianity. Through an examination of figures in various religions, including Gotama, Mohammed, and Gandhi, Dunne explores the possibilities of companionship with God."The holy man of our time, it seems, is not a figure like Gotama or Jesus or Mohammed, a man who could found a world religion, but a figure like Gandhi, a man who passes over by sympathetic understanding from his own religion to other religions and comes back again with new insight to his own. Passing over and coming back, it seems, is the spiritual adventure of our time. It is the adventure I want to undertake and describe in this book."—from the Preface

In this unique autobiography, John Dunne meditates on what it is to love God with all one's mind, might, heart, and soul. Dunne's captivating prose connects contemporary theology with the very real life experiences of finding, losing, and living love. Centered around pivotal moments at various stages in his life, A Journey with God in Time uses the grist of Dunne's experiences to plumb new theological and spiritual depths. A series of dramatic Thomas Cole paintings reflects the time periods-childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age-that form the organizational backbone of this work. Among the life experiences Dunne discusses are his relationship with his grandfather, his love of music, and his thoughts on death. In prose and song cycles Dunne takes readers on a spiritual journey through his extraordinary, and sometimes ordinary, life. Readers will find rich nourishment for mind and soul in this compelling new book.

In this unique autobiography, John Dunne meditates on what it is to love God with all one's mind, might, heart, and soul. Dunne's captivating prose connects contemporary theology with the very real life experiences of finding, losing, and living love. Centered around pivotal moments at various stages in his life, A Journey with God in Time uses the grist of Dunne's experiences to plumb new theological and spiritual depths. A series of dramatic Thomas Cole paintings reflects the time periods-childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age-that form the organizational backbone of this work. Among the life experiences Dunne discusses are his relationship with his grandfather, his love of music, and his thoughts on death. In prose and song cycles Dunne takes readers on a spiritual journey through his extraordinary, and sometimes ordinary, life. Readers will find rich nourishment for mind and soul in this compelling new book.

John Dunne calls his latest book A Vision Quest, borrowing the term from Native American tradition where a youth, coming of age, keeps a solitary vigil, seeking spiritual power and knowledge through a vision. Dunne seeks a vision like that of the great circle of love an old Bedouin described to Lawrence of Arabia,"The love is from God and of God and towards God." The modern vision of the world is one of evolution, life arising from matter, intelligence arising from life. The ancient vision was one of emanation, everything cascading down from the One. Dunne imagines bringing the two together into a great circle, everything coming from God and returning to God, where everything is "from God and of God and towards God." This inspirational work features a series of meditations by Dunne, enriched by his wide-ranging insights and quotations from the areas of theology, philosophy, and literature.

In Deep Rhythm and the Riddle of Eternal Life, John S. Dunne's twentieth book, he examines the end of earthly life and the prospect of eternal life. He begins with two questions: Is death an event of life? Is death lived through? If we answer yes to both questions, then we face "the riddle of eternal life." This book explores that riddle.Dunne finds his answer in the Gospel of John, with its three great metaphors of life, light, and love. Dunne contemplates the meaning of the metaphors in "deep rhythm," the deep rhythm of rest in the restlessness of the heart. The words of eternal life in the Gospel speak of life and light and love but also of life passing through death, of light passing through darkness, of love passing through loneliness. So, too, Christ, embodying life and light and love, passes through death and darkness and loneliness. This deeply meditative book from one of our most gifted spiritual writers and teachers will offer consolation to those at the end of life as well as hope for all readers who contemplate eternal life.

There is nothing wiser than the circle, Rilke says in his Stories of God. John Dunne's new book explores the wisdom of the circle. He uses the metaphor of the circle dance, a folk dance in which the women form an inner circle, holding hands and moving clockwise; the men form an outer circle, moving counterclockwise. When the music stops the person opposite you is your partner for the next dance. Dunne interprets the circle as the great circle of life and light and love that comes from God and returns to God. Dunne emphasizes the far point on the circle, farthest away from God, and uses that to discuss the difficulties of our secular age. In the individual life, the far point is a dark night of the soul. Yet Dunne sees that far point of loneliness and darkness as a point as well, marking the return to love and light. So the theme of the book is like the words of an old Bedouin to Lawrence of Arabia, "The love is from God, and of God, and towards God." The book concludes with the words of twenty-one "Circle Songs," composed by the author.

In his new book, John S. Dunne asks: "So what is eternal consciousness? It is, I take it, consciousness of the eternal in us. If time is 'a changing image of eternity,' as Plato says, the changing image of the human being is like The Voyage of Life, four paintings by Thomas Cole, showing childhood, youth, adulthood, and age. The eternal in us is the person going through these phases. It is the vertical dimension of the life, as in the title scene of War and Peace where Prince Andre lay on the battlefield looking up into the peaceful sky, perceiving peace in the midst of war. If the horizontal dimension is time and the vertical dimension is eternity, then eternal consciousness is awareness of the vertical dimension. What is more, the vertical dimension carries through the horizontal, as the person walks through life upright instead of being dragged through in 'quiet desperation.' Willingness and hope, accordingly, is willingness to walk through upright with hope in the face of death and darkness." —from the bookWhat can I know? What should I do? What may I hope? Dunne explores these questions in his characteristic hermeneutic method, finding the answer in "the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). It is the life of the spirit that is the eternal in us, the inner life of knowing and loving, the life of hope and peace and friendship and intelligence. "If there were no eternal consciousness in a man," Kierkegaard says, "what then would life be but despair?" John Dunne adds, if there is eternal consciousness in us, on the other hand, there is hope.To readers of John Dunne's books, Eternal Consciousness will be the latest installment chronicling his spiritual journey; to readers new to Dunne's oeuvre, it will be a lively introduction to the distinctive voice and thought of an inspiring author.

Dark Light of Love, John S. Dunne's twenty-third book, was written before his death on November 11, 2013. Dunne, called by Christian Century "one of the most serious and original theologians in the country," continues his quest of faith seeking understanding. In this new book he examines darkness as a metaphor for unknowing and the unknown. If dark light is like physical light traveling through the darkness of outer space, invisible until it strikes an object, then the dark light of love is the kindly light that leads us by the heart, one step at a time, toward God.In this slender, deeply meditative work, Dunne engages with a rich variety of sources—literature, theology, philosophy, and music—in an effort to elaborate how "the dark light of love" illuminates a soul in the process whereby it is "oned" with God through emergence, separation, and finally union. As Paul Kollman observes in the foreword, by examining his own knowing and his own loving in that process, Dunne leads us to reconsider our own knowing and loving, thereby shining light on the puzzles that perplex each of us.

The Road of the Heart's Desire focuses on the emergence of the human race and the individual from an undifferentiated oneness and the return of the individual to the human community and to reflective and differentiated oneness with God. Dunne expresses this reunion through music and language. "Thinking of the human essence, we can discern in story and song a double emergence and separation, that of the human race and that of the individual," he writes.Dunne traces four cycles of story and song: the unity of all things, an emergence and separation of the human race, the emergence of the individual, and finally a reunion of humanity with "all in all." The "road of the heart's desire" is the path each person takes toward this reunion.

The Road of the Heart's Desire focuses on the emergence of the human race and the individual from an undifferentiated oneness and the return of the individual to the human community and to reflective and differentiated oneness with God. Dunne expresses this reunion through music and language. "Thinking of the human essence, we can discern in story and song a double emergence and separation, that of the human race and that of the individual," he writes.Dunne traces four cycles of story and song: the unity of all things, an emergence and separation of the human race, the emergence of the individual, and finally a reunion of humanity with "all in all." The "road of the heart's desire" is the path each person takes toward this reunion.

"John Dunne writes with intelligence, style, grace, and sure and discerning spiritual insight. Like all writers of really good spiritual theology, Dunne never betrays his subject matter with the kind of pious posturing or psycho-babble gimmickry that too often passes for 'spiritual writing.' His prose is crisp without being dense or rattling. His theological sensitivity is alert to nuance without becoming trapped into mere jargon. His care for the heart of authentic spirituality, like Henri Nouwen's, is steady and believable.Dunne chooses the classical religious metaphor of the 'journey' and invites his readers to join him in a journey into solitude and back again into the human circle. He insists that we accept as guides in this journey the great spiritual masters of the Eastern and Western traditions. Thus in reading Reasons of the Heart, we find ourselves in the presence of some of the best insights of John's Gospel, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Buber, the Buddha, and Jesus. Dunne skillfully invites the reader to 'pass over' to a religious and theological vision of God and of our common humanity in our journey to authentic spirituality. Like Whitehead, Dunne believes that religion, above all, has to do with what an individual does with his/her solitariness. More than Whitehead, Dunne is concerned not only to have the individual enter solitariness, but also finally to leave it behind and rejoin the human community." —David Tracy, The Critic

Based on the Thomas More Lectures John Dunne delivered at Yale University in 1971, Time and Myth analyzes man's confrontation with the inevitability of death in the cultural, personal, and religious spheres, viewing each as a particular kind of myth shaped by the impact of time. With penetrating simplicity the author poses the timeless dilemma of the human condition and seeks to resolve it through stories of adventures, journeys, and voyages inspired by man's encounter with death; stories of childhood, youth, manhood, and age; and, finally, stories of God and of man wrestling with God and the unknown.

There is nothing wiser than the circle, Rilke says in his Stories of God. John Dunne's new book explores the wisdom of the circle. He uses the metaphor of the circle dance, a folk dance in which the women form an inner circle, holding hands and moving clockwise; the men form an outer circle, moving counterclockwise. When the music stops the person opposite you is your partner for the next dance. Dunne interprets the circle as the great circle of life and light and love that comes from God and returns to God. Dunne emphasizes the far point on the circle, farthest away from God, and uses that to discuss the difficulties of our secular age. In the individual life, the far point is a dark night of the soul. Yet Dunne sees that far point of loneliness and darkness as a point as well, marking the return to love and light. So the theme of the book is like the words of an old Bedouin to Lawrence of Arabia, "The love is from God, and of God, and towards God." The book concludes with the words of twenty-one "Circle Songs," composed by the author.

John Dunne calls his latest book A Vision Quest, borrowing the term from Native American tradition where a youth, coming of age, keeps a solitary vigil, seeking spiritual power and knowledge through a vision. Dunne seeks a vision like that of the great circle of love an old Bedouin described to Lawrence of Arabia,"The love is from God and of God and towards God." The modern vision of the world is one of evolution, life arising from matter, intelligence arising from life. The ancient vision was one of emanation, everything cascading down from the One. Dunne imagines bringing the two together into a great circle, everything coming from God and returning to God, where everything is "from God and of God and towards God." This inspirational work features a series of meditations by Dunne, enriched by his wide-ranging insights and quotations from the areas of theology, philosophy, and literature.