Finding the Language of Grace: Rediscovering Transcendence

“We are losing the ability to speak openly about fundamental aspects of our lives such as love and joy, beauty and goodness” warns Benedictine monk Jamison (The Disciples’ Call) in this dense treatise. He bemoans that “public language today... is almost exclusively commercial and practical,” and entreats readers to get in touch with the “mysterious dimensions of life” through Christian writings on grace. Unpacking Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel Silence, Jamison suggests that grace can be achieved through discerning when to speak and when to listen, as well as through contemplation, which enables one to “hear something of God’s silence.” The author notes that Hebrew prophets only saw the future in the sense that they “read the signs of the times in the present,” and contends that learning to see the graceful and disgraceful elements of history enables the envisioning of a “more gracious future.” Jamison includes exercises to help readers nurture grace by writing psalms and expressing gratitude every morning. Jamison’s lengthy explications of such texts as Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, the poems of John of the Cross, and the legend of Perceval and the Holy Grail consider methods of textual interpretation more than grace itself, and readers’ mileage will vary based on their willingness to dig into such academic discussions. This brainy outing offers worthwhile insights, even if they stray from its core goal. (Nov.)