Friday Favourites: Faith and Literature Matters
I had a lot of opportunity to get acquainted with our newest book Faith and Literature Matters this past week. We have review copies of all our books to be sent out, to newspapers and online blogs.
It could be more accurately called “Faith and Media Matters”. Literature comes up, and so does poetry. So do stage plays, films and biographies. Christianity and the Bible are inescapable in the history of Western media, from woodcuts to YouTube videos; they have shaped our language, formed our thoughts and lived in the foundations of our society. This book covers everything from John Milton’s essays to the Tom Hanks film Joe Versus the Volcano.
It’s also more personal than I thought it would be. While Faith and Literature Matters is presented as—and is, in fact—an ideal resource for teachers and religious educators, it also has moments of deep, intimate emotion. David Adams Richards talks about how he convinced a boy with a shotgun not to commit suicide. Mary Paquette Holmes talks eagerly about how theatre gets her, how it moves her. J.S. Porter talks about teaching his daughter poetry, and meeting poet Dennis Lee in the Korean Zen Temple in Toronto:
[Thich Nhat] Hanh’s face is ageless. He spoke in a whisper. Breathe in. He’d ring a bell. Breathe out. The talk, if you could legitimately call it a talk, went on for a couple of hours. In the talk there was more silence than speech, more presence than explanation.
Their passions for art and for faith are profound, and both are strongly intertwined. Each of the authors in Faith and Literature Matters talks about how art is a unifying force: between one person and another, and between people and God. Michael Higgins writes in his introduction:
When you read a poem like T.S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding,’ watch a play like King Lear, read a novel like The Brothers Karamazov … you enter a religious universe that speaks to the stark realities of human glory and infamy, folly and bravery, certitude and doubt, love and hate, demonic allure and saintly aspiration. In other words, in tasting so deeply of the human you glimpse the divine; you stand on the threshold of eternity; you can feel the transformative aftershocks of the Incarnation.
Faith and Literature Matters is a comprehensive and instructive book for teachers. It’s also more moving—and possibly inspiring—than they may expect.
-Gillian Robinson, Marketing and Sales Assistant
Order Faith and Literature Matters online now for only $15.75 — 20% off the retail price! Simply place the book in your cart and apply promotion code Faith14 to receive this special online offer. Offer expires Monday, so hurry now and get your copy today!
