cover image Between the Dreaming and the Coming True: The Road Home to God

Between the Dreaming and the Coming True: The Road Home to God

Robert Benson, R. Benson. HarperOne, $18 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-06-060973-3

Depression, the ancients used to say, was about dropping into the underworld, making contact with the dead, and it was one of the essential steps in the development of wisdom. Today, the American Medical Association calls depression a disease and often prescribes drugs and hospitalization to treat it. It is refreshing, then, to discover that Benson was provoked by his own clinical depression into a spiritual journey. Benson's small bundles of wisdom comprise this charming and elegantly written little book, and readers will be so impressed by the ease with which the author writes through his depression that they may well wish to imitate his craft in exorcizing their own demons of depression. Benson has given us that rare gift, a thought-provoking record of his own spiritual quest for God through the dark night of depression. Indeed, Willa Cather's phrase, ""Thy will be done in art as it is in heaven,"" which Benson quotes, could serve as an epigraph to this fine work. (Sept.)