Crystal Balls and Crystal Bowls – Ted Andrews

God loves us as gently as a mother, and as intimately as a lover As anyone will discover who casually dips into this beautiful collection, the women mystics of Christian tradition offer a lucid alternative to today’s more rationalistic approaches to God. They offer a way to peace, laughter, love, and connection with each other, and they show us a picture of a tender, nurturing, forgiving God who is as intimate as our own breath. There are indeed “women’s ways of knowing” and they are revealed in these insightful daily readings. Incandescence offers fresh translations from the writings of famous and not-so-famous mystics – Julian of Norwich, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen, Gertrude of Helfta, Margery Kempe, and others. Each reading includes a meditation, prayer, poem, or song, providing an oasis in a hectic day. The topics in this luminous volume include: God’s divine, mothering love, the guidance of God’s light, the sensuality of faith, a helpful and friendly Trinity. In these pages, the images of the spiritual life are the erotic ones of the feminine experience. They are the stuff of very physically-present women who loved their Lord with a ferocity and passion that could be reported only in those experiences of the flesh. . . there is peace here in the company of these good women—peace, and the nurture that only wise and well-worn priestesses can bring to a day’s occupation.