In his op-ed, “The Subtle Sensations of Faith,” David Brooks calls “My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer,” “the best modern book on belief.” The author, Christian Wiman, has struggled – for many years – with a rare form of cancer, and he lays bare many of his rawest thoughts in this book about many aspects of meaningful living, particularly in relation to faith. I think the best way to give a quick glimpse is to share a few select passages.
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“No one ever believed in God without perceiving God.”
“To say that one must live in uncertainty doesn’t begin to get at the tenuous, precarious nature of faith. The minute you begin to speak with certitude about God, he is gone. We praise people for having strong faith, but strength is only one part of that physical metaphor: one also needs flexibility.”
“To be truly alive is to feel one’s ultimate existence within one’s daily existence.”
“I’m a Christian not because of the resurrection (I wrestle with this), and not because I think Christianity contains more truth than other religions (I think God reveals himself, or herself, in many forms, some not religious), and not simply because it was the religion in which I was raised (this has been a high barrier). I am Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
“My God, my bright abyss
into which all my longing will not go
once more I come to the edge of all I know
and believing nothing believe in this.”
