Suggested Reading
It goes without saying that the first book on this list is the Bible. Otherwise, the order and arrangement of these books are a jumbled mess. As you grow in your spiritual journey, it is recommended that your reading list reflect the transition of your life from a milky reading to that of meat.
Saint Augustine's
Confessions
One of the most prolific writers of the Christian faith, Saint Augustine is mandator reading. His Confessions, arguably the first ever memoir, lyrically grapples with the everyday struggles of everyday Christians.
Annie Dillard's
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Eudora Welty wrote of Dillard's work, "The book is a form of meditation, written with headlong urgency, about seeing." Part memoir, part essay, everything compelling, Dillard teaches us to open our souls to the world and be embraced.
John Wesley's Sermons
Given that we are a United Methodist congregation, required reading includes John Wesley's Sermons. The Circumcision of the Heart, The One Needful Thing, Salvation by Faith, Justification by Faith, Christian Perfection, and The Scripture Way of Salvation are among his greatest hits--if you will.
Tracy K. Smith's Ordinary Light
Called by one book reviewer, "A lyrical, evocative, and poignant memoir: about poem in stunning prose," is perhaps an understatement. In many passages, it is hard to know if you are reading a book or listening to music. "The Jesus-happy crowd, the naked faith that would have traveled along my mother's voice, the hand holding and head bowing--I couldn't fathom indulging the embarrassment, even before myself, of such raw, untempered, hardheaded believing."
Henri Nouwen's Gracias!
A wonderfully prolific spiritual giant of the 20th century, Nouwen breathes new spiritual wind into the lungs of those hungering for more than quaint spiritual devotionals. Gracias is but one outstanding book. He has many others offerings.
Thomas
Merton's
Essential Writings
Whenever we list a suggested author's essential writings it means that it is hard to go wrong with any of their works. A random Merton sentence reads, "The way to find the real 'world' is not merely to measure and observe what is outside of us, but to discover our own inner ground."
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Man is not Alone
Reverend Richard John Neuhaus wrote about Heschel, "For Jews and Christians beyond numbering, [Heschel] was a spiritual mentor who changed our lives in ways that we are still trying to understand." A Jewish mystic of the 20th century, Heschel's prose creates envy among poets and awe for readers.
Christian Wiman
My Bright Abyss
To the best of my knowledge they have yet to release a Wiman reader, otherwise I would recommend that book. Some have said his My Bright Abyss was "forged from pain," another called it a "holy text," and still others called his book a "masterwork of doubt and faith, literature and theology." Easily, Wiman is one of my favorite contemporary authors. Indispensable reading.
Belden C. Lane
Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice
Here's a random passage from Backpacking with the Saints, "Everything in creation is hungry for relationships. All bodies yearn for connectedness with each other and with the Source of their energy and life." This book is part travel narrative, spiritual memoir, and a hike with many of the greatest thinkers, theologians, and saints of the church.
Mary Oliver
Upstream: Selected Essays
We live in a beautiful world and we can know this to be truth, if, for no other reason, because Mary Oliver tells us so. Her voice, however, isn't a didactic lecture telling us how beautiful the world is. She shows us through punctuated beauty.