Awakening the Spirit is the final work in book form by its senior co-editor. I write with a keen awareness that Brother Wayne Teasdale now enjoys an interfaith perspective that surpasses our imaginations, a perspective he so diligently and devotedly pursued during his walk on this earth. As I read the book he co-edited with Martha Howard, reflecting upon what I would write in this review, an email message arrived informing me that Wayne Teasdale, an acquaintance through the work of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Board, had died peacefully in his sleep the previous night. The book we consider here is part of his legacy born of a boldly sincere pursuit of truth and interfaith communion.

The authors of these 30 candid autobiographical accounts of the spiritual journey represent a broad spectrum of world religions. Each story is truly unique. What they all have in common is some interfaith experience that has held meaning and become part of that person’s journey. The book progresses through several stories of youthful search for meaning to stories by authors more firmly rooted in a tradition who feel called to grapple with the daunting task of authentically integrating meanings and practices from traditions radically different from the faith in which they have lived and grown to some maturity. Some accounts reflect a freely eclectic approach; others, an attempt to bridge differences and discover common ground when faced with a new insight, experience, or circumstances involving another faith tradition.

Perseverance wins a crown, we are told. That proverbial wisdom applies in the case of this modest volume. Staying the course through all 30 stories provides a sweeping view of the range of interfaith experience.

The book is organized in an unusual way. For example, the rationale and purpose for this volume is withheld from the reader until the last pages of the book. Well and good for one who can dip in and out of experiential accounts without any clear sense of where the editors are going with it all. For readers—including myself—more inclined toward a systematic, theoretical approach, an early trip to the last “chapters” helps enormously to provide a framework for the varieties of personal stories presented.

It appears, however, that the order in which these varied stories are presented was in no way haphazard but clearly intended. Perhaps it is sufficient for us to speculate that reading this book is a tad like entering into interfaith dialogue itself. That is, one needs to experience another way in order to fruitfully reflect on and ponder its meaning. Furthermore, one cannot clearly predict the outcome of genuine encounters with other traditions. Trusting the teaching of Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate that there is truth to be found in other religions, we stand a good chance of being changed by the truth we encounter. The arrangement of material in the present volume invites the reader to wade in, to experience the streams and tributaries and convergences of major rivers before formulating any conclusions.

One is rewarded with occasional pearls of insight, but the main thrust of this collection of stories is to walk the reader through an astonishing array of interfaith experiences. There is little or no attempt to analyze the character of the experiences; each story is simply one person’s experience in an interfaith context. Consequently, terms are used without a standard referent. A case in point is the frequent mention of “mystical experience,” apparently referring to a wide range of spiritual phenomena.

I found it interesting to note that the project that spawned this book emerged out of the 1999 Parliament of World Religions in Capetown, South Africa. A group called the Spiritual Life Circle was formed to explore effective approaches for opening minds and hearts in the ways of compassion, kindness, and love-in-action in all forms of spiritual life. A series of retreats designed for systematic exposure to wise persons in many traditions fostered the experiential context of inquiry and reflection within this group.

Those seeking a stretch in the realm of interfaith possibilities will likely find this book rewarding. Others, more comfortable with a focused theoretical, analytical approach, may have to cope with a measure of frustration with the open-endedness of it. At any rate, these editors have succeeded in gathering a set of stories that reflect the experience of spiritual sojourners more common in our day than perhaps at any time in the history of humankind. It behooves us to be aware of the amazing diversity in faith traditions and awaken to the potential for interfaith understanding, enrichment, and cooperation.