Dear Friends and Family,
It is my joy to bring to you news about the book I’ve been writing for the past couple of years. Actually, I think the book has been written in me. It’s a story that I am compelled to share with you.
Pilgrimage of a Soul: Contemplative Spirituality for the Active Life will be released May 28 with InterVarsity Press. An imprint of “Likewise Books,” it targets people who have interest in social justice; but the book will speak to anyone who is committed to living an authentic life. Tracing seven movements of the soul: Awakening, Longing, Darkness, Death, Transformation, Intimacy and Union, the reader is invited to bear witness to an intimate and vulnerable personal journey that echos the story of every person. Following is an excerpt from the introduction:
Darkness. If you’ve experienced it, you know what I’m talking about. Darkness sets in long before we’re old enough to recognize it. It begins with anguish. We’ve been hurt, sometimes tragically, and we don’t know what to do with that injury. The safest thing seems to be to hide the pain, perhaps behind a mask. We seek to be safe by any means necessary. We learn to cope. And we achieve for ourselves a form of love, security or power that the wounded part of us desperately needs. But these coping mechanisms rob us of fullness of life. To really thrive in life, our soul needs to be transformed—over and over again. This is the work of the spiritual journey. Exercising the courage to embark on the journey postures us for radical transformation.
Many of you who are reading this book are probably persons of faith. You may feel as if you’ve been on the spiritual journey for quite a long time. But the spiritual journey is subtly different from our faith conversion. According to Father Thomas Keating—a Cistercian monk—at the time of conversion we orient our lives by the question, “What can I do for God?”[1] Seems appropriate, right? But when we begin the spiritual journey our life is dramatically altered toward the question, “What can God do for me?” This isn’t a narcissistic, exploitative question toward a disempowered God. It’s the exact opposite. This is the central question of a humble person who has awakened to their true self and to the awe-inspiring adoration of an extraordinary God.[2]
One of the things we desperately need God to do for us is to transform us from what we are today into what God intends us to be. In a world where leaders of nations are making war and preparing to defend their sovereignty with proliferation of nuclear bombs, where religious fundamentalists kill innocents under the guise of righteousness, and where the average American citizen contributes daily to the destruction of our ecosphere, it is clear that we are a people in need of transformation. All of us are subject to self-deception. We commit evil and call it good. We commit violence and call it social justice.
If you would like to order a copy of Pilgrimage of a Soul, you may do so at the WMF webstore www.wordmadeflesh.org or www.amazon.com. Thank you for your support for Chris and me and WMF. Together may our sacrifices bring greater freedom, peace, hope and redemption to our hurting world.
Be well. Breathe deep. 
[1] Thomas Keating is a modern Christian mystic. For more than fifty years he has given himself to the ancient Christian contemplative tradition. Through contemplative prayer he has excelled in the fruits and gifts of the Spirit. He is wise and holy, discerning and kind. His life bears witness to the Presence of Christ living within him. He is rooted in the Presence. And from the heart and mind of Christ, Fr. Thomas responds to the world around him. Being anchored in the real, immanent and transcendent Presence of God frees him to respond as Jesus would. Through his efforts and those of others like him, he has renewed the Christian contemplative tradition and made it accessible to monks, nuns and lay people alike. His teaching illuminates the gospel and provides a road map for the spiritual journey.
[2] The true self is our most liberated, deepest self in contrast to the false self who lives from a place of bondage, woundedness and fear. I will expand on this concept throughout the book. For further reading on the true and false self consider the following books: David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself; Albert Hasse, Coming Home to Your True Self; M. Basil Pennington, True
Self False Self; Thomas Merton, The New Man.