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Eckhart's Way (Way of the Christian Mystics)
by Richard Woods
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Liturgical Pr (1990-08)
ISBN: 0814655475
EAN: 9780814655474
Dewy Decimal #: 248.22092
Paperback: 246 pages
SKU: 080618003
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: This Volume 2 copy is in good condition. Theres a fair amount of neat underlining/reference column markings to different parts of the copy. Otherwise, No visible highlights, tears to text. Tight spine. Side/bottom fore-edges has small stain spots and a pen tick. No Dust Jacket. Soft Cover has minimum, shelf/edge wear. Great reading copy, worth having at an affordable price. (6H-3)
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Customer Reviews
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Competent introduction to a man centuries ahead of his age
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-01-24
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This proficient book clarifies Eckhart's style of writing, bringing out the radical implications of his life in a clear way. Basically, Eckhart's understanding of God and spirit was simply too direct for any intervening hierarchy of godly officials to bear. For example the book shows how Eckhart was one of the few medieval male religious leaders to appreciate the movement of independent female religious communities, which was labeled "the Beguines". Most of these women were poor naturally, not because of any ideology of "holy poverty". But many observers felt that their ordinary poverty was controversial. Not only did the Beguines' lifestyle seem to challenge the wealth of established orders, it also suggested a collapse of the wall between religious vocation and life in the secular world. And here we meet a realization almost forgotten since St. Paul. If self-reliance was really the most moral way of life, were not ordinary lay Christians potentially closer to God than "the religious"?
Eckhart saw the Beguines' challenge clearly. For him they were living contradictions to the whole notion that the world and the flesh must be left behind for a religious life. By their actions these women suggested that loving the secular world was more holy than seeking to escape it. Eckhart admired the Beguines. He saw them as direct explorers of Christ's path, seeking to cultivate love through their everyday encounters with others. (p. 84). Quite naturally Eckhart wanted to protect and support them. He wanted their energy for his own Dominican Order, and persuaded its leaders to adopt several Beguine houses as Dominican convents.
This is only one of Eckhart's many insights which Woods explores, showing how the church came to "condemn" him, and why his cause prevailed in the end.
--author of "Different Visions of Love"
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