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Overview
Do we love with a love we know, or with a love we do not know? This question, posed to author John S. Dunne in a dream, and its answer prompts Dunne to describe in Love's Mind the journey one takes in contemplating and coming to know love, a journey that involves moving from the loneliness and restless longing of the human heart through spiritual friendship to the ultimate spiritual destination of love of God and union of love with God. The compass one uses on this personal journey is the way of contemplation. For Dunne the contemplative life is a dimension of every human life and should not be limited to the monastic way of life; instead, he considers it the missing dimension in our lives and times - times where violence has supplanted spiritual contemplation and left individuals deprived of the joy and challenge of the spiritual journey that ultimately leads to a union of love with God. As Dunne describes this journey, three features of the contemplative way of life emerge: the way of words, the way of music, and the way of spiritual friendship. He explores each with characteristic eloquence and introspection, drawing on his experiences of giving spiritual retreats, his presentations on violence and the contemplative life, and his insights on contemplation as the missing dimension in American life. In addition, Dunne considers the contemplations of Aquinas, Aristotle, and Augustine, and draws on a rich store of literary sources, in harmony with his view that art, literature, and music point to God. Ultimately, his insights lead him to a vision, like Augustine's, of the city of God - a city of the heart where contemplation takes the place of violence. Love's Mind is the story of how unknowing love becomes knowing love when one comes to the realization that our being in love may be God loving in us, and that our blind love may be God's unconditional love in us.Editorials
Library Journal
Dunne, a theology professor and author of many creative books on spirituality from a Roman Catholic perspective that ``cross over'' to explore other religious traditions, believes that American life lacks the contemplative dimension--in words, music, and spiritual friendship--by which ``unknowing love becomes knowing as it becomes heart-free.'' Dunne's reflections on art, literature, and music provide a new way of expressing the passage from restlessness and longing to love. It is a contemplative journey Dunne believes that everyone can take and that provides the answer to the violence and loneliness of our times. Not just for Roman Catholics, this book offers hope to the educated person who wants guidance. Highly recommended.Gary Young
The theologian as poet! Dunne draws together more humanists than theologians to create his analysis of contemplation. He more than fulfills his promise to explain the "three movements of contemplations": the restless movement of the heart, heart speaking to heart, and following the heart. (The heart is a metaphor for deepest being.) The book is intellectual without being arcane, religious but not saccharine. The author weaves threads of insight from an unexpected corps of writers: Tolkien, Proust, Wile, MacDonald, Eisely, and many others, who are joined by artists like Mozart, Marcel Marceau, and Georgia O'Keeffe. There are echoes of Aquinas, Newman, and Buber. Except for John of the Cross, monastic voices remain silent. The work "gathers to a greatness" and concludes with two song cycles, worded by Dunne. The bibliography lists a litany of soul searchers. As with contemplatives, this book is not parochial but is another map for those "walking the road of the union of love with God."Book Details
Published
December 31, 1993
Publisher
Notre Dame : University of Notre Dame Press, 1993.
Pages
160
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780268013035