Soul Provider

I received Soul Provider: Spiritual Steps to Limitless Love by Fr. Edward Beck and here was another book I was not to enthused to review.  When you have a book cover with positive reviews  by the Dalai Lama and reviews for his previous books by Anne Lamott,  Andrew Greeley, Diane Sawyer, L.A. Times etc. you would certainly have a tendency to judge a book by it's cover reviews.  Add to that that the book also quotes from Hindu, Islam, and other sources and throws in global warming a couple of times it would certainly seem that I might rather have my fingernails torn out then to read it.

Maybe since it was Lent I read it anyway and I do try to review books sent to me even though it gives me no pleasure to write a negative review when I have to. To my surprise thought I pretty much did enjoy this book.  The book is a chapter by chapter following of The Ladder of Divine Ascent by Saint John Climacus.  In the original work there are thirty steps along the spiritual path and the book follows this steps with thirty chapters.

Fr. Beck builds on the steps of St. John Climacus by trying these explain these steps in more modern terms.  For the most part he succeeds.  He tells a wealth of stories from his own life and dealings with others to help the audience see these steps and why following them are important to the spiritual life. My positive reaction to this book is mainly because I judge that this book was written for a larger audience and not specifically for Catholics.  If the book was specifically written for Catholics then it is not very good since it almost totally lacks the framework of the sacraments so necessary to advance in the spiritual life.  As I suspect that this is a more generic book on the topic of spirituality mostly rooted in a Christian context I have less problems with it.

As I mentioned there are example used from other religious traditions, but the large majority of references are to scripture.  I did not get the feeling of syncretism in the use of these other sources and that what was quoted was applicable to the topic at hand. Fr. Beck is a capable writer and he keeps you interested in the topics at hand and has some good insights along the road.  I certainly got the idea that he was firmly in the progressive camp when it comes to the Church, but it was not overt and for the most part did not distract from the steps from The Ladder of Divine Ascent.  But mostly I had to remember what the audience was for the book for it not to annoy me at times.  For people with very modernist ideas who are starting to take God and the spiritual life seriously there is a lot of good in this books.  Fr. Beck has had a wealth of dealings I suspect with this audience and thus he examples will be quite useful for them.

One chapter I found that fell short of the rest of the book was the one on lust. This though was not exactly surprising since it is the telltale sign of the progressive side that when it comes to sexual morality that they just don't fully understand why it is sinful.  He wants to take a "fresh look" and asks "would any of us be around without lust?"  This question perfectly shows his error of understanding and even thought he quotes the Catechism on lust as a "disordered desire" he doesn't seem to understand that sexual desire within marriage does not have to be disordered. I think it is a rather sad worldview to believe that there has to be lust within the covenant of marriage.  As if lust is a necessary evil.  There are also a couple of mentions of homosexuality that while not condoning it certainly contain no caveats and in another chapter the "Course of Miracles" is mentioned without providing any caveats of this new age nonsense.  I found it rather interesting that in the chapter on lust he was totally able to sink his teeth into denouncing avarice and was able to wax long on this subject.

So while this book is not the sort of book I would recommend to the audience of my blog I can see that this book could be quite useful for some.