Raw Faith: Nurturing the Believer in All of Us

Simone Weil would put it this way: "There is a God" (the one she loves). "There is no God" (the one we try to put into words). Spirituality is life lived with this tension.

Raw Faith is John Kirvan's prayerful exploration of the faith that is needed to live with an unknowable God. It is a journey he -- and you -- take in the company of great mystics -- Christian, Jewish, and Islamic. Here one finds Simone Weil, as well as Pascal, Henri Nouwen, Al-Ghazzali, and the rabbinic wisdom of the Pirke Avot.

In 50 mediations and prayers that are rooted in the wisdom of the great mystics, we are given an opportunity to understand better and more deeply our own journey by reflecting on the faith experiences and insights of those who have traveled this way before.

I have known since I was very young that every time I confessed my belief in God I have had to add, "help thou my unbelief." I know that in this I am not alone. Along the way I have come to accept that our spiritual journey will be not a way of easy certitude and satisfaction but a way of unfathomable mystery and faith, of contradictions, of life lived with God who in the end remains unknown and unknowable, a life with the world's expectations turned upside down. It is a way called "apophatic" -- an honored way of approaching

god that stretches from the insights of Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th Century, through the Cloud of Unknowing in the 14th to Simone Weil in the 20th.

Raw Faith and it's companion book, God Hunger, are at their roots prayerful journals of an

unquenchable hunger for God, a journey that can be nourished only in faith and lived out in hope. It has been for me and remains a journey taken in the dependable company of the great Christian, Jewish and Islamic mystics who have traveled this way before, whose insights have enlightened the journey and inspired. I wish you well on your journey. --John Kirvan

Most spirituality is about the voice of God. John Kirvan writes about God's silence. Most spirituality is about the presence of God. John Kirvan writes about God's absence. In Raw Faith, a companion volume to his God Hunger he explores a centuries old spiritual tradition -- it is called apophatic -- that is centered in the pursuit of an unknown and unknowable god. It stretches from the world of Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century, through The Cloud of Unknowing in the 14th to Simone Weil and Henri Nouwen in the 20th. Kirvan's is a highly personal journey that he -- and the reader -- take in the "good company" of the great "apophatic" mystics: Christian, Jewish and Islamic. In 50 theme-centered meditations and prayers readers are given an opportunity to understand

better and more deeply their own journey by reflecting on the faith experiences and insights of those who have traveled this way before.