Bookmarks

Sufi teacher Jamal Rahman has teamed up again with two friends, Jewish scholar Kathleen Schmitt Elias and Christian scholar Ann Holmes Redding, to write about the spiritual path in each tradition. The book is divided into three sections: “Spiritual Guidance in the Abrahamic Traditions,” “The Mysteries of Life” and “The Path of Surrender and Provisions for the Journey.” Rahman begins each section with a meditation from the Qur’an, focusing on such themes as finding spiritual teachers, the mystery of God, and how to pray. Elias and Redding then draw on Rahman’s reflections for brief essays on how Jewish and Christian traditions make use of these themes. This book contains a wealth of Muslim, Christian and Jewish texts that can help readers understand all three Abrahamic traditions more deeply.

In years of experience as psychoanalysts, husband and wife Jacqueline Olds and Richard S. Schwartz have found that though many of their patients describe themselves as depressed, they are suffering from something much more familiar: isolation and loneliness. Americans are lonely and socially disconnected—and increasingly so. As Olds and Schwartz observe, some of these desperately lonely people are probably spending hours online communicating each day. But the Internet as relationship facilitator can go only so far. It can keep us in touch with friends, help us meet new people, coordinate lively and stimulating discussions of any issue—but it’s leaving many Internet users very unsatisfied.