In an age of tourism, the great challenge is to see ourselves at a deeper level: the dimension of pilgrimage. Being a pilgrim might involve a journey to distant places associated with God-revealing events, but it has more to do with simply living day by day in a God-attentive way. Jim Forest's book assists the reader to see one's life as an opportunity for pilgrimage, whether in places as familiar as your living room or walking the pilgrim path to Santiago de Compostela. Drawing on the wisdom of the saints and his own wide-ranging travels, Forest leads us to a range of "thin places," including Iona, Jerusalem, the secret annex of Anne Frank, the experience of illness, the practice of hospitality, and other places and occasions where we may find ourselves surprised by grace.

Drawing on stories from the lives of the saints, scripture, and everyday life, Jim Forest opens up the mysteries of the Beatitudes. These ancient blessings, with which Christ began his Sermon on the Mount, are all aspects of communion with God. As Forest shows, they are like rungs on a ladder, each one leading to the next. They appear at the doorway of the New Testament to provide an easily memorized summary of everything that follows, right down to the crucifixion ("Blessed are you who are persecuted") and the resurrection ("Rejoice and be glad").

Not everything Jesus taught must be regarded as a commandment. Counsels on voluntary poverty or chastity, for instance, have been seen as an option for a small minority of Christ s followers. The same cannot be said about the love of enemies. This does not fall in the if you would be perfect category. It is, instead, basic Christianity, which Jesus taught through direct instruction, through parables, and by the example given with his own life. And yet it is undoubtedly the hardest commandment of all, one that runs counter to our natural inclinations. It is, as Jim Forest shows, a commandment that calls for prayer, discernment, and constant practice. Along with reflections drawn from scripture, the lives of the saints, and modern history, Forest offers nine disciplines of active love, including praying for enemies, turning the other cheek, forgiveness, and recognizing Jesus in others, that make the love of enemies, if not an easier task, then a goal worth striving toward in our daily lives."

In the fall of 1964, Trappist monk Thomas Merton prepared to host an unprecedented gathering of peace activists. "About all we have is a great need for roots," he observed, "but to know this is already something." His remark anticipated their agenda--a search for spiritual roots to nurture sound motives for "protest." This event's originality lay in the varied religious commitments present. Convened in an era of well-kept faith boundaries, members of Catholic (lay and clergy), mainline Protestant, historic peace church, and Unitarian traditions participated. Ages also varied, ranging from twenty-three to seventy-nine. Several among the fourteen who gathered are well known today among faith-based peace advocates: the Berrigan brothers, Jim Forest, Tom Cornell, John Howard Yoder, A. J. Muste, and Merton himself. During their three days together, insights and wisdom from these traditions would intersect and nourish each other. By the time they parted, their effort had set down solid roots and modeled interreligious collaboration for peace work that would blossom in coming decades. Here for the first time, the details of those vital discussions have been reconstructed and made accessible to again inspire and challenge followers of Christ to confront the powers and injustices of today. "If Thomas Merton held a retreat in the '60s on the spiritual roots of protest--attended by Daniel Berrigan, John Howard Yoder, A. J. Muste, and ten more great Christian peacemakers--would you want to be there? Gordon Oyer's exhaustively researched, inspiring story of just such a legendary retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani feels like faith on trial at the edge of the end of the world. Read it and see." --Jim Douglass, author, JFK and the Unspeakable "A meticulously researched account of a historical event whose ramifications are as apposite today as when they were first discussed, perhaps more so. The prophetic voices and the witness of the retreat participants are brought to life in Oyer's engaging narrative, echoing from the Gethsemani woods down through the ages, still struggling to be heard against the techno-babble, the inertia felt by so many, and the ever more sophisticated war machine of our world today." --Paul M. Pearson, Director, Thomas Merton Center "Three powerful faith traditions . . . converged for the first time at that legendary1964 retreat hosted by Merton. . . . Any of us who seek today to bear public witness to the gospel, justice, and political imagination are truly 'children' of that conversation a half century ago. . . . We are walking in their footsteps. Oyer has gifted us with a magnificent chronicle of the contemporary spiritual roots of protest." --Ched Myers, Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries Gordon Oyer is an administrator with the University of Illinois system and has an MA in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the past editor of Illinois Mennonite Heritage Quarterly, has served on different regional Mennonite historical committees, and is the author of various articles on Mennonite history.