Going on Faith: Writing as a Spiritual Quest
Going on Faithis an expanded version ofSpiritual  Quests(1988), a collection of essays--originally a New York  Public Library lecture series about religious writing--by David  Bradley, Frederick Buechner, Mary Gordon, Hugh Nissenson, Allen  Ginsberg, and Jarozlav Pelikan. This new edition coincides with what  the book's editor, William Zinsser, calls "a new interest in matters  of the spirit." Its list of contributors has grown to include Hillel  Levine ("a Jewish writer talking out of a lifelong spiritual search"),  Diane Ackerman ("a writer who finds religion everywhere except in  churches"), and Patricia Hampl (who explores "the life of religious  contemplation").Mary Gordon's thoughts about the effect of her Roman Catholic  upbringing on her fiction writing (for example,Final Payments) are  among the book's highlights. "Regular attendance at Mass," she claims,  was "an excellent training ground ... for an aspiring novelist"--and  not just because of the resemblance between the form the Mass takes  and the form a novel takes. "An hour a day in a confined space like a  church, where one has the leisure or the boredom to observe others of  one's kind when they imagine themselves to be in private communion  with their deepest souls," says Gordon, "is as useful for a  prospective novelist as a wiretap." In his essay, Frederick Buechner  (Godric)  contemplates the similarities between faith and fiction. "You fashion  your story," Buechner says, "as you fashion your faith, out of the  great hodgepodge of your life--the things that have happened to you  and the things you've dreamed of happening." But perhaps what faith  and fiction "have most richly in common," says Buechner, "is that they  are a way of paying attention."Not all of the book's contributors are traditionally devout. Hugh  Nissenson professes to make a religion of his atheism. David Bradley,  who comes from a long line of Methodist preachers, claims writing as  his religion. And Diane Ackerman   (A Natural History of the  Senses) doesn't believe in God. Nevertheless, she says, "even  without an organized religion or a church I often find myself in a  position of praise or prayer.... I also find myself constantly going  on pilgrimages and quests."--Jane Steinberg--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.