God Laughs \u0026 Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right by David James Duncan

God Laughs \u0026 Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right Reviews

• 
  Meredith Holley

  
  David James Duncan is one of my heroes, both for being a wonderful writer from the Pacific Northwest, and for saying a lot of the things I think way better than I could ever say them. He is a preacher of rivers, which description I think conveys both the lovely things about him and the sometimes irritating things about him.
  God Laughs Plays is a collection of talks he has given and articles he has written or for which he was interviewed. You can probably gather the basic idea from the title. Duncan very accurately describes my most simple thoughts about him as a writer, when he talks about how people react to the moment in his book
  The River Why, when the protagonist, Gus, has a mystical spiritual experience:
  
  "Reader reactions to this climax have been neatly divided. Those who have experience similar detonations have sometimes been so moved by the scene that their eyes filled as they thanked me for writing it - and those who've experienced no such detonation have asked why I ruined a dang good fishin' yarn with woowoo. I admire both reactions. Both are constitutionally correct. Both are perfectly honest. What more should a writer want from a reader?" (p. 50)
  
  I could not agree more with both sentiments. Duncan is one of the best of the great "fishin' yarn" writers (in which group I include
  Ernest Hemingway and
  Herman Melville), but is also a metaphysical preacher and spiritual guru, in the way that he should be, as a reader and Northwestern lover of the wonderful rivers and forests. Sometimes he can get a little too flowery in his metaphysical talk for my taste. It's the same problem I have with the
  Madeline L'Engle books after
  A Wrinkle in Time. I'm willing to believe the universe has all this grand organization, but it gets to me when people are too impressed by it, but not too impressed to talk about it. I'm sure everyone experiences that kind of awe in one way or another, but it doesn't translate well into words. It sounds desperate, or something. Also, sometimes Duncan uses words like "woowoo" and "dang good fishin'", which . . . umm . . . I don't like.
  
  There are many transcendent moments in all of his writing, however, and he does have the ability to set a story up as spiritually over the top, when suddenly he becomes very self-aware and turns it into an appropriately hilarious joke. I think that is one of the greatest abilities writers can have - Shakespearean in a lot of ways. It seems relevant to quote, for your reading enjoyment, the story that inspired the title God Laughs and Plays, which took place when Duncan was in college at the beginning of the Vietnam War (In this type of book, I don't really feel like there is anything to give away in terms of a plot, but if you truly wish to read the book and want it to be entirely a surprise, I'll throw in this spoiler warning for you: *SPOILER!!* - skip the italicized letters, or else. Also, there are enough other brilliant stories in here that I don't think quoting this one will make this review like the preview for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, where the summary makes the actual thing a disappointment):
  
  While waiting at the food stamp office one day, I happened to open my new used Eckhart book to a sermon titled "God Laughs and Plays". I don't recall what scripture the Meister quoted in defense of this truth. And I refuse to look it up. There's too much dead text and too little living intuition in American spirituality these days! "God Laughs and Plays..." The title alone hooked me. I'd read enough Eckhart to know he was wiser than any Christian I'd met, and far wiser than me. I'd read enough to feel the glowering Republican "God" of fundamentalism losing his last shreds of power over me in the face of the unfathomable, loving mystery that is Eckhart's "unknown God". I'd read enough to know I trusted this sage with my mind and heart. And there in the food stamp office, the man I'd come to trust informed me that "God laughs and plays."
  
  "The joy of all saints and angels together . . . amounts to as little as a bean when compared to the joy of God at play."
  
  . . . Why did I believe these crazy words? I don't know. Why did my life begin to morph because of these words? I don't know. Given the grim death of my brother, the threat of the draft, threat of the war, plus my lifelong religious skepticism, the idea of a God who laughed and played seems incredibly unlikely to have pierced me. Yet the instant Eckhart declared it, things started to change.
  
  The food stamp office, for instance. How ridiculous it began to look! So self important. So institutional. So deliberately depressing. . . The place seemed conspiratorially designed by some Nazi Martha Stewart out to create oceans of ambient guilt in poor people.
  
  The rules, too, began to seem ridiculous. That the ailing, half-wrecked, unhirable folks who dragged themselves in here had to lie every visit, as I did, saying we'd been out hunting jobs, in order to collect our stamps! Not only did it make us feel guilty, it taught us that lying is necessary in order to survive.
  
  In short: the place suddenly struck me as so concertedly Kafkaesque, and the news that God laughs and plays was so explosively non-Kafka, that I began to grin at the whole clumsily officious arrangement. . .
  
  As soon as I started to think this, I too started to feel joy. And in its presence, I found I could no longer do what I was doing. The grubby plastic chair beneath my ass suddenly struck me as hilarious. Then so did the buzz of the tube-lights, the guilt-inducing rules, the shame-inducing stamps. Then so did my fear of going to Vietnam. If God laughed and played, I could laughingly refuse to serve in 'Nam! If God laughed and played, it was ridiculous of me to be eking out an American half-life according to so many tiny-minded miserable little rules. I stood up. I snapped Eckhart's sermons shut. "God laughs and plays," I told the food stamp office, "and I'm outta here!" And I never went back again.
  
  That's a crazy-sounding story, I realize, and it leaves what we tend to call "reality" out. So let me say how I dealt, in nuts and bolts, with my loss of government nutrition assistance. . . " (p. 181-183)
  
  Duncan is very willing to acknowledge his own silliness, but still dive right into it. What better compliment could I give an author?
  
  This book was published in 2006, and I should have been more prepared for the repeated references to Bush Jr. than I was. While I agreed with everything Duncan said on that topic, it was tedious to me to read about that presidency, when so much of me wants to never read of it on my free time again *sigh*. To give you an idea of Duncan's excellent sentiments along those lines, this is a little snippet from an interview Duncan includes. He is discussing his relationship with his family, who it seems were involved in rather oppressive Seventh Day Adventism, and he says, "And my mother remains one of my closest friends, and she has never answered an Altar Call in her life because, in her own words, 'I'm already a Christian, and that preacher has no right to try and shame me!' And in her view the presidency of G.W. Bush is 'one big Altar Call" (p. 176). Yep!
  
  Duncan came to speak to a small group of people at the University of Oregon School of Law when I worked there and was very inspiring about getting rid of useless dams and saving communities from the destruction of gold mining. These are things we should do. He has this really meek, but persuasive, air about him of being some kind of cross between Louis L'Amour, Gandhi, and Gloria Steinem. I like it. He writes boy stories that I can get into. This was more of a fan book than a stand-alone work, but it still had much of the beauty and thoughtfulness of his fiction. I would think that for people who prefer nonfiction (though, as Duncan smartly points out in one of his essays in this book, what is that really?) this would be a better read than
  The River Why, but nothing of his that I've read quite compares to
  The Brothers K.
• 
  P.J. O'Brien

  In general, these essays are very good. There were times that Duncan's passion and bitter experiences gave me the sense that he had fallen into the same strident "preaching" that frustrates him about others. It didn't happen often; he is quite reflective, self-aware, and open. But sermons, like other lectures, are a method to impart a particular perspective rather than give all sides.
  
  The book was written decades ago, so in details it often sounds dated. But the overarching themes still hold true. Overall, I prefer his novels to his essays even though I am an avid reader of non-fiction in general (as well as fiction). I think he would understand: there is a chapter in this book where he writes how fiction can reveal truths beyond facts.
• 
  Douglas

  God Laughs and Plays is a collection of essays, interviews, rants and musings by David James Duncan. They are scattered over a time span between October 2002 and the present.
  
  I'm not sure I like the subtitle, because Duncan has issues with lots of different parts of Christendom; the Seventh-Day Adventists in his family for their unwillingness to believe anyone is going to heaven but them, the Catholics for excommunicating Origen and not canonizing Duncan's hero Meister Eckhart, the Protestants for dividing the body of Christ into a large number of small denominations, the evangelicals for enlisting God as a foot soldier in their political battles, the charismatics for using God as a way to get rich, and any Christian not already mentioned for not fully appreciating the other religions of the world.
  
  What rocks about God Laughs & Plays? Duncan has a great wonder at nature, which he expresses unabashedly, unashamedly and beautifully. He slips in unexpected words at unexpected moments, as when he referred to a mystical experience as a detonation. He overlooks the censoring of one of his books. He helps angry environmentalists get over themselves. He seeks to love people with whom he's passionately angry. He admits that he has had environmental complaints with other administrations besides the G. W. Bush administration.
  
  What stinks about God Laughs & Plays? Species self-loathing issues. He is fully persuaded that man is a plague, a cancer on the planet. Everywhere man has entered wilderness he has wrecked it. As I read this book, I remembered the Robert Heinlein quote...
  
  There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" -- but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race -- i.e., his own self-hatred.
  
  What else stinks about God Laughs & Plays? Not giving his targets a chance to defend themselves. He seems to be clearly on the pacifist side of the pacifist/just war fence, but he doesn't address the possibility of either Operation Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom being just wars. He doesn't mention how Saddam Hussein gamed the Oil-for-Food program, or the corruption of the United Nations. So you should take the rants against U. S. military involvement with a grain of salt.
  
  You may not like everything in God Laughs and Plays, but on the other hand, you may find some things you really like. I did, hence the four stars even with the negative comments
• 
  Dave Brown

  I am not a religious person. I never will be. This book, however, makes sense of the paradox that is Christianity. It spoke to my "shame" that I have as a human being especially concerning the fundamentalist right and my mystical experiences that I hold dear and true that cannot be defined by any order or sect.
  
  The book is filled with story, essay, musings and other writing tidbits that Duncan weaves into a single narrative that seeks to return the word Christian to its rightful place. This, from a fellow who admires the spirit and word and despises the actions and hypocrisy of those who claim it as their own.
• 
  Cheryl

  A fantastic book, very respectful to christianity while expressing such beauty about the ways we love god or what we perceive as the divine or holy, and while he felt the holy in nature as a child, and I found it as an adult, he writes from his heart to mine. he writes that he cherishes all names for god, all gods from every religion, and every religion, as well as people, trees, rivers, etc. Because his heart is by nature inclusive, and how can he not? amen, my friend.
  
  [There is a] kind of all-embracing universality evident in Mother Teresa’s prayer: “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” Not just fellow nuns, Catholics, Calcuttans, Indians. The whole world. It gives me pause to realize that, were such a prayer said by me and answered by God, I would afterward possess a heart so open that even hate-driven zealots would fall inside.
  
  My sense of the world as a gift, my sense of a grace operative in this world despite its terrors, propels me to allow the world to open my heart still wider, even if the openness comes by breaking—for I have seen the whole world fall into a few hearts, and nothing has ever struck me as more beautiful.
  
  Religious laws, in all the major religious traditions, have both a letter and a spirit, and as I understand the words and example of Jesus, the spirit of the law is all-important whereas the letter, while useful… becomes lifeless and deadly without it. In accord with this distinction a yearning to worship on wilderness ridges or beside rivers rather than in churches could legitimately be called evangelical… if your words or deeds harmonize with the example of Jesus, you are evangelical in spirit whether you claim to be or not. When the non-Christian Ambrose Bierce wrote, “War is the means by which Americans learn geography,” his words are aimed at the same antiwar end as “Blessed are the peacemakers."
  
  The fundamentalists of every faith remain blind to the truth that the “sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jew.” I have seen this unity with my eyes, heard it with my ears, felt it with all my being.
  
  
  "To every Armageddonist, every earth lover must keep saying with all the sincerity and affection we can muster, “May God make this world as beautiful to you as it has been to me.”
  
  “No man can think of God himself. It is therefore my wish to leave everything that I can think and choose for my love the thing that I cannot think.” Anon
  
  "the only unfailing guide I’ve ever found through the innumerable blind alleys of my life as a writer, man, husband, father, citizen, steward, or believer, is the love burning in my hear. for me, prayer is about one thing: making contact with that love. though it burns in there like a candle flame, hot, bright, beautiful, love’s flame is so fragile… keeping one’s love burning, and living in accord with that burning: this, to me, is prayer."
  
  "There were a couple of occasions in India when I was twenty that felt to me like going out with a thimble in your hand, hoping to catch a drop of rain, and having the ocean land on your head. These experiences convinced me that there is an absolute love that pervades everything."
  
  "As surely as I feel love and need for food and water, I feel love and need for God. But these feelings have nothing to do with Supramundane Males planning torments for those who don't abide by neocon "moral values." I hold the evangelical truth of our situation to be that contemporary politicized fundamentalists, including first and foremost those aimed at Empire and Armageddon, need us non-fundamentalists, mystics, ecosystem activists, unprogrammable artists, agnostic humanitarians, incorrigible writers, truth-telling musicians, incorruptible scientists, organic gardeners, slow food farmers, gay restaurateurs, wilderness visionaries, pagan preachers of sustainability, compassion-driven entrepreneurs, heartbroken Muslims, grief-stricken children, loving believers, loving disbelievers, peace-marching millions, and the One who loves us all in such a huge way that it is not going too far to say: they need us for their salvation."
• 
  Deon

  Duncan was raised Seventh Day Adventist but he found his cathedral in the wilderness, his spiritual life best served in the rivers, streams and mountains. God Laughs & Plays puts forth the belief that intolerance and loss of personal freedom are being justified in the name of religion. He is deeply offended that so much harm is being done in the name of God. He believes we should all be allowed our personal beliefs, that belief should not be dictated by the government. It is way too easy to fall into seeing things in terms of political doctrine, to say to yourself the dissenting views don’t really understand and thereby cloak yourself in the dogma of whatever political party you follow. Republicans still loyal to this war see themselves doing God’s work and see Democrats as weak on terror. Democrats see the war as unable to be won, each side pointing at the other as the root of the problem. They are blinded to the real world by their belief in political propaganda, but it is NOT all politics. Those are not just ideas dying in the sand on the other side of the world, American and Iraqi, they are people. David James Duncan relays the experiences of a remarkable nurse from Woodinville Washington, Gerri Haynes, She has been involved in humanitarian work in Iraq since the first Gulf War, in 2002 she returned again to try and help a country lacking in basic medical supplies and clean water because of the UN Embargo and US bombing of the water treatment facility. Duncan writes “While her group moved from bed to bed, Gerri approached a woman sitting next to a dying child. Gerri speaks no Arabic. The woman spoke no English. Trying to be “present” anyway, Gerri looked at the child, then at the mother, and placed her right hand over he own heart. The Iraqi mother placed her right hand over her own heart. Gerri’s eyes and the mother’s eyes simultaneously filled with tears”. I am heart broken that I support through my tax dollars the infliction of this kind of suffering. If a mother must sit at the bed of her dying child, let it not be because my tax dollars supported an embargo that denied her medicine. For the love of God, how can we expect people to relate to us in a sane way if we prevent them from getting medicine for those they love? We live in a country founded on freedom. The freedom to chose your religion, the freedom to hold dissenting views, the freedom to debate those views are all dear to the American way of life. This is a heartfelt book from a gifted author. Come use your freedom of expression to give your opinion, everyone in America is entitled to their opinion and the right to dissent. We have never been a country that demanded we be for or against only one way of thinking. .
• 
  Deb

  Included my favorite piece of Duncan's writing: Wonder, Yogi, Gladly. I heard him read this essay in 1998. I loved it and contacted the person who organized the lecture to tell Duncan how much I enjoyed it. Several weeks later, a hand addressed envelope arrived from Montana containing a copy of the as-yet unpublished essay and the note: "See you in the pages of my next book." I love this guy!
• 
  Jonathan Hiskes

  This is Duncan at his most frustrated -- an open-hearted nature lover in the darkness of the Bush Era. It's also Duncan at his weeping, laughing, effusive, hilarious A-game.
• 
  Mark

  It took me a while to get through this. My brother really loves the author's spiritual & environmental other books, and requested this one for a gift. I ended up getting one for myself, too. Though we didn't read it together, it offers us a point of reference to discuss.
  
  The parts I had trouble with were the most topical sections, where there was rage against a previous President and his war in Iraq. I share some of that frustration, but under the current circumstances of our current President and the poisoned atmosphere of politics, it was tough to take. The writing is not bad, not wrong, but now is not the time for me to re-live those days. I'm too consumed guarding against a downward spiral of our present society. (Trying to, at least.)
  
  Further into the book, however, the author got to what he does best--marry the spiritual and the environmental. Then at some point he even let some of the environmental emphasis subside and focused on deeper philosophy, especially shared wisdoms of multiple faiths. He's clearly well-educated in the variations of everything from Protestant Christianity to Hindu to indigenous spiritual faiths. This was my favorite part of the book, one that keeps a dog-eared page in my copy. I may need to return to it some day.
• 
  Micah McCarty

  I was afraid this book would be outdated but I found it surprisingly relevant. Clearly the political situation was focused on Bush, Cheney and the Iraq war when it was written but not much has changed within the Republican party so I found the book extraordinary in its wisdom. I can't imagine what Duncan would have thought of the Trump presidency...
• 
  Rachel Johnson

  Such a gift. Grateful for the way DJD can make me think but also encourage me to stop thinking and wallow in wonder. This collection met me right where I was and will be a formative text I come back to many times.
• 
  Carinna Tarvin

  There is no goal beyond love.
• 
  Daniel

  4.75!
• 
  George

  I can't believe I took this long to read this. It is exceptional.
• 
  Tim

  I actually believe that Jesus died and then came back to life. I always assumed this made me a fundamentalist Christian. However, the kind of fundamentalism that Duncan addresses in this book is much scarier than anything I have encountered at church. Yes, I have been and am recovering from some extreme forms of legalism that aren't part of the message of Jesus. But I maintain hope that most churches in America (protestant or Catholic) are purer than the extreme that Duncan is confronting in this book.
  God Laughs and Plays has helped me think about a lot of things in new ways, which is the highest compliment I think I can give a book. It has helped me break away from the 1+1=2 theory of "salvation", or the idea that being "saved" is reference to the location of your soul after you die. Duncan points out that the heart of Christianity has always been one of loving and doing good to those who hate you, not the relatively heartless and certainly joyless "I prayed a prayer and asked Jesus to come into my heart and therefore I'm going to heaven" I've heard a million times. Praying that prayer means nothing in and of itself. Even if it's heartfelt. Being Jesus to everyone you meet by loving them in a nonjudgmental way and helping them with their needs makes a Christian far more a Christian than the one who merely prayed the "sinner's prayer." The mathematical version of salvation is much easier. I prayed the prayer; therefore I'm going to heaven. Even legalism is easy, really. I can restrain myself from doing a bunch of things on a list if I try hard enough. Really loving, really purging anger and hatred from my heart and life is much more valuable but much more difficult than following a list of rules. The world needs more David James Duncans, but it also needs more Christians who are willing to read a book that might not show up in their local "Christian Bookstore."
• 
  Rachel Brummet

  I needed this.
  
  My teacher lent this copy to me when we discovered that we both shared a love for David James Duncan, and I am so thankful that she did. This was spiritually refreshing, and in many ways, it felt like taking medicine for my soul. Though at times I really had to engage my mind in order to comprehend his ideas and set the wheels of my mind into motion, it was worth all of it.
  
  I always assumed that there had to be others who shared ideas in common with me; there are so many people in the world. However, Duncan is really the first person I've interacted with (through reading, in this case) who precisely describes many ideas that I, too, support. The difference is that he has all the right words.
  
  For example, Duncan has many of his spiritual experiences when he is fishing or spending time on rivers, but in all of his years of church-going, he never experienced any such thing there. I have had the exact same experience! I, too, generally have spiritual experiences when I am spending time outdoors. Often it is while I am on my night walks. There were many other things that Duncan and I agree on as well, but I will leave it at this.
  
  Duncan is wonderful. Thanks so much to Mrs. Smyser, my amazing & sweet biology teacher, for sharing such a gem with me.
  My heart, mind, and soul are singing joyously. :)
• 
  Jeff

  I would give this 4.5 stars if I could, because the last 20 or 30 pages become just a bit too mystical for me and what I liked most about the earlier parts of the book were Duncan's ability to "get mystical" without losing me. I don't object to the mysticism from an orthodox or theological stance; it's his inability to explain/affect me when he starts getting a bit esoteric at the end that bothered me. Of course, I'm sure one could argue--and Duncan actually does--that it's nearly impossible to approximate in mere words a mystical experience.
  
  With that said, I loved this book! By turns funny, inspiring, and thought-provoking. Mostly non-fiction essays and interviews in response to the right-wing, fundamentalist mindset of the G.W. Bush era (which--surprise, surprise!--still has relevance now) it is one of those rare books that could make me laugh, cry, AND think in the span of a single page. One scrap of fiction (with commentary) that was the standout is "Romeo Shows Jamey the Door"! WOW! If you've ever had to euthanize a suffering pet, read this and be prepared to cry, but they may just be tears of joy. One of the best moments of fiction for my whole year!
  
  Highly recommended (especially to thoughtful Seventh-day Adventists who don't mind being challenged)!
• 
  Ron

  I'm working my way through various David James Duncan books, and I believe this is the last of what he has written. It is a series of essays that is not for everybody. I found some very enjoyable (and thought provoking), some not so.
  
  x: God is Unlimited. Thought and language are limited. God is the fathomless but beautiful Mystery Who creates the Universe and you and me, and sustains it and us every instant, and always shall. The instant we define this fathomless Mystery It is no longer fathomless. To define is to limit. The greater a person's confidence in their definition of God, the more sure I feel that their worship of "Him" has become the worship of their own definition.
  
  p25: Henry Bugbee: The tenets of scripture are meant to be occasions for wonder, not the termination of it.
  
  p183: I wanted less. Wanted next to nothing. And I learned that desires aren't wants - learned, when I felt restless, felt like shopping, felt like being coddled or entertained, to say I don't want! and be happy.
• 
  Ryan

  Duncan is a fantastic writer. His writings on faith, politics, nature, as well as sprinkling some good nuggets on writing were fun and intriguing. I enjoyed how he unashamedly pointed out how faith and politics are not to be mixed—i.e. that America isn't the salvation of the world. I absolutely loved this!
  
  Though Duncan calls himself an Evangelical Christian, he seems to be so "open" as to include other religions as well—He claims no one has the One God and the True Book. He seems to be burned out on the fundamentalism of the Seventh Day Adventists, so he writes about experiencing God in other ways. Experiencing God in other ways (nature and other normal activities) is good and needful, but I think Duncan has a very misguided view of community and church life.
  
  I loved his book because it made me think outside the box and Duncan is a master with words. Even though I didn't agree with everything it said, I did agree with a lot and enough to give it a good review.
• 
  erin

  "Wonder is my second favorite condition to be in, after love -- and I sometimes wonder whether there's even a difference: maybe love is just wonder aimed at a beloved. Wonder is like grace, in that it's not a condition we grasp: wonder grasps us... Like grace, wonder defies rational analysis. Discursive thought can bring nothing to an object of wonder."
  
  This is a collection of essays, speeches, and stories or "Churchless sermons in response to the preachments of the fundamentalist right." To be honest, I skimmed somewhere around a 1/3 of the book for one reason or another. Lack of interest, being unable to keep my eyes open or pure anticipation for getting to Harry Potter... More on that later though. This is second of David James Duncan's books I've read. The Brother's K has been on my favorites for awhile now.
• 
  Jen3n

  Well, I'm not sure what to tell you.
  
  This is a well-written, and well throught-out book by a man who wants to wrestle Christianity back from the ultra-conservatives and the political right.
  
  His view of the Christian God is right in line for how I like to think of God when I think of God which is, I have to be honest, not all that often. Not exactly. My spirituality is a little hodge-podge.
  
  But! If you are sick of the religion of "Love Thy Neighbor" being co-opted by a bunch of anti-neighbor war-mongers and the like, this book will make you feel better. I smiled a couple of times and found myself nodding at a couple of passages.
  
  Reccomended, for my lefty-leaning Christian friends. All one of you. Heh. But people who are just vaguely left politically will like it, too, I think. So that ups the number.
• 
  Suzie

  My review . . . can't do justice to the profound love I have for the message of this book. I'll be revisiting it hopefully for the rest of my life. Check out my quotes section to get an idea of the brilliance of David James Duncan, then do yourself a favor and read this book. Read it in the quiet hours of the morning and before you go to sleep at night. Read it in a forest or a meadow, on a riverbank or a sandy beach. Read it in the middle of a train station bustling with men, women, children and dogs. Read it at mass or sacrament meeting.Read it out loud to anyone who'll listen. Read it out loud to yourself. When you've finished, let's talk.
• 
  Leroy Seat

  This is a delightful book, which, unfortunately, I did not read when it was first published. It would have been even more powerful then than now (because GWB is no longer President).
  
  One of my favorite novels is Duncan's The Brothers K (1992), and I have been waiting for him to publish another novel. But he hasn't yet. So I was happy to read this book and have the opportunity to enjoy afresh his writing as well as his worldview.
  
  Duncan ends his book with these words: "If I stake my life on one field, one wild force, one sentence issuing from Sinai it is this one: There is no goal beyond love” (p. 227).
• 
  Don

  This book of essays by one of my favorite writers is stunning in its directness and simplicity -- he's the master of the metaphor.
  
  "If you were basking in bright sunlight, and a man a quarter-mile away suddenly shouted, 'Hey you! I can see the sun from over here! Stop what you're doing and come over where I am! HURRY! You've GOT to come here! I see the SUN! Come out of your darkness, sinner! Get over to where I am!'"
  
  And that's religion, rather than spirituality. And that's what this book is about. I love it!
• 
  David A-S

  David James Duncan is one of my favorite contemporary voices. His two novels are the Brothers K and the River Why? This book is a compilation of his essays on faith. It is intended to be both an apologetic and a counter to fundamentalism. He is a wounded child of Seven Day Adventism, who found his way back to faith through nature, mystics, and spiritualists the world over. He is undeniably Christian but scared of the church. There are moments in which you will laugh, go hmm, and go get over it.