The Best Spiritual Writing 2000
Edited by with an introduction
by
325 pp. San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco. $16 (ppb).
The Best Spiritual Writing 2000 is the latest in the Best Spiritual Writing Series, begun in 1998. This wide-ranging collection of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry is edited by Philip Zaleski, author, senior editor of Parabola magazine, and professor of religion at Smith College. The 40 writers in 2000 include a professor of divinity at Harvard, a former US President, a Zen practitioner, and a Chicasaw environmentalist. Two of the writers have won Pulitzer Prizes, another a National Book Award, and most of the others have received awards and fellowships as well.
Varied as these authors are, the issues they confront and write about are universal. 2000 includes many accounts of spiritual struggles, a few of which are heartrending. Other selections are excellent personal accounts of religious traditions. One of the best, "Immanuel's Ground," is Lionel Basney's exquisitely detailed recollection of the Christian camp meetings he attended as a child in rural New York State.
