Keeping Faith
Subtitle: A Skeptic's Journey
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: April 16, 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780618004423
First sentence: ON THIS PLEASANT EVENING of July 1996, the long, narrow chapter room at the rural Kentucky abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani was filled with monks.
Description: "Keeping Faith explores the depths of what it means for a skeptic to have and to keep faith. Johnson grew up with the Trappist monks but rejected institutionalized religion as an adult. While living as a member of the Gethsemani community and the Zen Center, however, he learned to practice Christian rituals with a new discipline and studied Buddhist meditation, which brought him a new understanding of the deep relationship between sexuality and faith, body and spirit. Changed in profound ways, Johnson ultimately turned back to his childhood faith, now inflected with the accumulated wisdom of his journey. Johnson interweaves memoir, the personal and often shocking stories of Buddhist and Christian monks, and a revealing history of the contemplative life in the West. He offers lay Christians an understanding of the origins and history of their contemplative traditions and provides the groundwork needed to challenge orthodox understandings of spirituality. No matter their backgrounds, readers will find Keeping Faith a work of great power and immediacy."--Jacket.