One of the most distant and, at the same time, one of the most intimate pieces of literature in the
modern world is the ordinary, everyday, personal letter. Today, for the first time in history, people can
sit almost anywhere and at the touch of a button contact almost anyone in the world. They can pour
out their hearts, vent their angers, beg for help, engage in deep philosophical reflection, and tell the
most personal details of their lives. Most of all, encouraged by empathy, protected by the anonymity
that computers afford, they can do it without ever having to look another person directly in the eye.
They can talk to the other as if to themselves.
I know because I get a lot of that. They sit in the dark and ask questions. I sit in the dark and write
back.
Over the years, as a result, the letters that have come in every day have accumulated by the
thousands. I read all of them and, barring lost files or illegible addresses or bad email transmissions, I
have made an effort to respond to each and every one of them. After all, people say very important
things when they write to people they do not know but think may be willing to listen. The anonymity of
both the writer and the reader allows for a great deal of candor, even a good deal of emotion.
It has never been easy to keep up with that amount of mail, but it has been worth it. Reading those
letters has been for me an exercise in humanity that far outstripped anything sociological surveys or
human development textbooks or philosophy lectures ever managed to teach me.
I answer the letters, yes—at least at one level—but not really. Underlying all the data, all the
frustration or the fear, are questions too real, too raw, too deep, certainly too obliquely expressed to
pursue at length in an email. A one-line response to the great questions of life belies the real meaning
of them to us all. No, these questions are far too valuable for that kind of treatment.
It is those issues, those questions—the questions and issues that plague my readers and fill my mail—
with which this book deals. But it is far more than that as well. It is also about the way other people, in
other ages, other cultures, other spiritual traditions, have dealt with these subjects.
I have learned a great deal from the questions posed by my letter writing readers. I have learned even
more from the wisdom figures of past ages and other traditions who, long before all of us, were also
trying to find the answers to such things. They, too, struggled to find their way through the vagaries of
life led only by the holiness models before them. It is not that they were great sinners who repented; it
was that they were great seekers who sought to grow beyond the husk to the core of life, beyond the
manuals of the spiritual life to the essence of the spiritual life.
It is an enlightening excursion, this wandering into the spiritual insights of other whole cultures, other
whole intuitions of the spiritual life. It depends for its fruitfulness on openness of heart and awareness
of mind. But the journey is well worth the exertion it takes to see old ideas in new ways because it can
bring us to the very height and depth of ourselves. It can even bring fresh hearing, new meaning to
the stories that come down to us through our own tradition.
-from the introduction
Welcome to the Wisdom of the World
by Joan Chittister
modern world is the ordinary, everyday, personal letter. Today, for the first time in history, people can
sit almost anywhere and at the touch of a button contact almost anyone in the world. They can pour
out their hearts, vent their angers, beg for help, engage in deep philosophical reflection, and tell the
most personal details of their lives. Most of all, encouraged by empathy, protected by the anonymity
that computers afford, they can do it without ever having to look another person directly in the eye.
They can talk to the other as if to themselves.
I know because I get a lot of that. They sit in the dark and ask questions. I sit in the dark and write
back.
Over the years, as a result, the letters that have come in every day have accumulated by the
thousands. I read all of them and, barring lost files or illegible addresses or bad email transmissions, I
have made an effort to respond to each and every one of them. After all, people say very important
things when they write to people they do not know but think may be willing to listen. The anonymity of
both the writer and the reader allows for a great deal of candor, even a good deal of emotion.
It has never been easy to keep up with that amount of mail, but it has been worth it. Reading those
letters has been for me an exercise in humanity that far outstripped anything sociological surveys or
human development textbooks or philosophy lectures ever managed to teach me.
I answer the letters, yes—at least at one level—but not really. Underlying all the data, all the
frustration or the fear, are questions too real, too raw, too deep, certainly too obliquely expressed to
pursue at length in an email. A one-line response to the great questions of life belies the real meaning
of them to us all. No, these questions are far too valuable for that kind of treatment.
It is those issues, those questions—the questions and issues that plague my readers and fill my mail—
with which this book deals. But it is far more than that as well. It is also about the way other people, in
other ages, other cultures, other spiritual traditions, have dealt with these subjects.
I have learned a great deal from the questions posed by my letter writing readers. I have learned even
more from the wisdom figures of past ages and other traditions who, long before all of us, were also
trying to find the answers to such things. They, too, struggled to find their way through the vagaries of
life led only by the holiness models before them. It is not that they were great sinners who repented; it
was that they were great seekers who sought to grow beyond the husk to the core of life, beyond the
manuals of the spiritual life to the essence of the spiritual life.
It is an enlightening excursion, this wandering into the spiritual insights of other whole cultures, other
whole intuitions of the spiritual life. It depends for its fruitfulness on openness of heart and awareness
of mind. But the journey is well worth the exertion it takes to see old ideas in new ways because it can
bring us to the very height and depth of ourselves. It can even bring fresh hearing, new meaning to
the stories that come down to us through our own tradition.
-from the introduction
Welcome to the Wisdom of the World
by Joan Chittister
Why I Wrote My New Book,
WELCOME TO THE WISDOM
OF THE WORLD
WELCOME TO THE WISDOM
OF THE WORLD
Order this book now.
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