Emerging Heart

Millions of Americans have adopted and adapted spiritualpractices and virtues from a variety of traditions. What are theylooking for? Theologian and retreat leader Beverly Lanzettabelieves that our contemporary world desperately seeks a sharedspiritual foundation adequate to meet our most pressing moral,religious, economic, and social issues. We need, she argues, aspiritual vocabulary to describe the unspoken, to interpret ourcommon humanity, and to articulate our earthly concerns in a wayrespectful and inclusive of all.

Highlighting pioneers of global spirituality such as ThomasMerton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abraham Heschel, Mohandas Gandhi,Howard Thurman, Bede Griffiths, and Dorothy Day, EmergingHeart shows how a variety of religious traditions emerge from and converge on a divine nature and mystic quality that creates a loving heart. Lanzetta first describes this phenomenon in her own experience and then elaborates on that mystical core, the notion of the divine, the new shape of interreligious dialogue, pioneers of this new global spirituality, and the personal, spiritual, and ethical challenges that it poses to us.

This is a book of breathtaking insight and high moral ambition torestore our sense of human possibility and high purpose.