Looking for some spiritual reading for your Lenten journey? The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage would be a good place to start. Paul Elie's book chronicles the lives of Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton,"four modern American Catholics who made literature out of their search for God." Ten years after its publication, it's the book that I hear cited most often by non-Catholics or lapsed Catholics as a bridge to understanding the diversity of intellectual, spiritual, social, political and artistic experiences/expressions that exist within the Church.
Case in point, during an email discussion about O'Connor and Day, my friend, Amy Ziettlow--an ordained Lutheran minister and an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values--alerted me to Krista Tippett's recently posted (reposted?) interview with Elie about his book. It's definitely worth listening to here at Tippett's On Being website.
In addition to writing for The Atlantic and Huffington Post, Amy's work at the IAV involves leading a Lilly Endowed study of Gen X caregiving and grieving titled, "Homeward Bound: Aging, Death, and Dying in an Era of High Family Fragmentation." She just published a very sobering piece on casino gambling, senior citizens and suicide that is definitely worth reading, here.
