Back at the beginning, when I was dreaming up an education for myself, I gave myself the task of studying "philosophically and religiously sophisticated literature (see my original proposal)." I remember that this occasionally drew some chuckles from my wiser advisors, even as they encouraged me to go forth. The joke of course was that "religiously and philsophically sophisticated literature" means many things and spans galaxies of texts.
What my task came to mean to me in practical terms was similar to what my major as a whole has been--following those fleeting glimpses of something big, something earnest, some small sign that this is a mind that has a clue about that certain way of being I sensed in Bacon's aphorism.
This chapter of this story then is dedicated to the men and women who gave me such glimpses through creative literature--novel, mystic memoir, poetry, play, and gospel. By following the links to the right, you'll see some of my responses to their texts, mostly in formal essays, but with the occasional bit of lyricism as well, if you look hard enough.