This book begins with an experience of love that seemed to the author both deeply personal and broadly universal. He indicates he was prone to melancholy and negative and overly-critical thinking, but this experience of total love snapped him right out of that. He uses nature imagery, romantic imagery and spiritual imagery to describe the experience, and then shows throughout the book how these are all integrated and held together by the experience itself. As the book goes on, there is reflection on the experience and what ramifications it has for his philosophy of life, of relationship, and of God. The experience has revealed something new about God, about relationship, and about himself. There are allusions to Bible passages but these are interpreted in a new way: according to this experience of love. The passages about love in "the Scriptures" now are seen in a new, vital, vivid way. The introduction states that the book presents an argument for spirituality based on the idea that "God is love." For the author, this means that God's creation - we ourselves - must also be love, because we were created in the image and likeness of God. Thus we are only natural, only truly ourselves when we are loving. And all this love is meant for our happiness - simply because God is love and cares for us.
Author: Michael Roden Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform Published: 01/17/2013 Pages: 212 Binding Type: Paperback Weight: 0.64lbs Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.45d ISBN: 9781481861519
About the Author Michael Roden has been studying Theology, Philosophy, and Poetry for decades. He's worked as a Psychotherapist all that time as well (with degrees in Psychology and Counseling). He offers a bevy of new psychological insights into spiritual ideas, such as love, in an effort to make them come alive for the reader. "They were primarily psychological ideas in the first place and, as such, were meant to be experienced in a very deep way, at the center of our being (that is, our heart and mind). Such ideas as love, forgiveness, salvation and eternal life were meant to re-orient our internal being - and bring us great joy." Michael Roden is the author of the following books of Theology: A Church Not Made with Hands: Christianity as Spiritual Experience (Hampton Roads, 2005) Jesus and Ourselves: An Alternative Understanding of Christianity (1996) He has written the following books of poetry: Paradise Re-Envisioned (2011) Songs of the Morning: Meditations on Healing and Self-Knowledge (1997)
