Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe

the fundamental, dynamic relationship between the Infinite and the finite – in Buddhist symbols, between Emptiness and form, or in Christian language, between the Spirit and the world – is one in which both exist in and out of each other; utterly different as they are and remain, they co-inhere, they “inter-are.” (This is what we explored in Chapte

Thus we can describe this intangible experience of identity in faith in the cross as the enduring element in the mysticism of the cross, and as the inner reason for the outward expression of misery and the ever recurring protest against it.

what I definitely believe is that the great religions, all of them and the great mystical traditions of Buddhism and Taoism, and so on, have central truths that they hold in common, and that these are a kind of wisdom that are not appreciated, unless one is brought up in a tradition that helped one see

them. And our tradition is dead against seeing

There are two good answers to the question of why religion continues to persist and grow. One explanation is that many people find secular reason to have “things missing” from it that are necessary to live life well. Another explanation is that great numbers of people intuitively sense a transcendent realm beyond this natural world.