An Equal Joy Reflections On God Death And Belonging

“I have noticed, increasingly, that people after the age of 65 or thereabouts begin to experience the fear of death in a very palpable way. While in their childhood and youth they had viewed death as happening only to grandparents, while in middle age they could still afford to relegate death to remote corners of their consciousness where it could not intrude upon the pleasures of living, the advent of old age after 65 brings to them a deeply disturbing sense of mortality.” So begins An Equal Joy, a collection of essays in which award-winning author Catherine Lim undertakes a bold and intense exploration into the fear of death, the nature of religion and the question of who we are. Drawing on her own experiences and myraid influences—from the Taoist “Sky God” of her childhood and the Christian God Jesus of her adulthood to scientist Pascal and philosopher Socrates; from intimate conversations with close friends to the imagined world of fictional characters—Lim reflects on the beauty of both the natural world and the world of faith. As Lim writes, “Truth, Goodness and Beauty. For me, they form the goals of a perfect life.” In sharing her insights, Lim not only provokes us to reflect on the meaning of life but also encourages us to live as meaningful a life as possible.

In this exciting collection, an array of contemporary theologians reflect on the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to some of the worlds most pressing issues and problems. Offering a corrective to disembodied discussions of the Spirit, this book provides a look at the Holy Spirit set loose and sustaining the gift and struggle for life in the midst of todays troubled world. Among other topics, the contributors examine the Spirits activity in the reading of Scripture, the reality of religious pluralism, the growing ecological crisis, the rise of consumerism, and issues of empire. Contributors include John B. Cobb Jr.; Roger Haight SJ, Barbara A. Holmes, David H. Jensen, Molly T. Marshall, Sallie McFague, Amy Plantinga Pauw, Joerg Rieger, Eugene F. Rogers Jr., and Amos Yong.

The author is the main character of this work in which he travels through other dimensions and the origin of the universe is revealed to him.