Spiritually Incorrect - Softcover

Dan Wakefield

Softcover

ISBN 10: 812911853X ISBN 13: 9788129118530

Publisher: Rupa Publications India, 2011

Synopsis

With candour and irreverent humour, Dan Wakefield's Spiritually Incorrect shows that there is no one path to achieving spiritual fulfilment. Part memoir and part essay, Wakefield's reflections break through the barriers that have been placed on the path to spiritual fulfilment, discussing the importance of breaking rules in order to carve out an independent and unique path to achieve the attainment of a spiritual life.In an age of political correctness, the award-winning author, raises controversial questions about spirituality: Why is poverty sacred, wealth profane?Can a coffee house be a sacred space?Does yoga make you a Hindu?Can a man pray in public and still be 'macho'? Does eating a steak really taint your soul?Who in our lives and our modern day world deserves to be canonized as a saint? His exploration of these questions is, in essence, a quest to free the spiritual world from pretension, anxiety and the endless rules that dictate an individual's relationship with religion.

About this title

About the Author

Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. He has won a Rockefeller grant for creative writing and a National Endowment of the Arts Award. He is the author of many books, including The Story of Your Life: Writing a Spiritual Autobiography (Beacon Press) and Returning: A Spiritual Journey (Beacon). Wakefield is also author of "Spiritually Incorrect," an ongoing Beliefnet.com column. His memoir New York in the 50's is now a documentary film showing on The Sundance Channel. His novel Going All the Way was turned into a movie starring Ben Affleck. Dan Wakefield can be contacted at www.DanWakefield.com.

Marian DelVecchio is staff artist for the Miami Herald. Her weekly feature, "A Different View," is seen by millions of readers each month.

From Publishers Weekly

Although Wakefield culls these essays from, among other sources, his Beliefnet column "Spiritually Incorrect," the titular concept remains rather vague throughout the book. In his introduction, he gives several examples of being spiritually incorrect, such as getting a facelift, owning a convertible and having a tattoo. His explanation of who finds these practices spiritually incorrect is a bit labored and confused; at times, he seems to be rebelling against "my fellow Christians who are of the fundamentalist persuasion" and at other times he seems more interested in scandalizing yoga-practicing vegetarians. Most chapters are very brief; they introduce an idea (some of which, such as the spiritual correctness of taking Prozac, are no longer very controversial), include a few observations and then simply end. For example, in a chapter that rather curiously employs a question-and-answer format (it's not clear if this is from an advice column he has written), Wakefield discusses whether or not it is "spiritually incorrect" to eat steak. He begins by decrying the rigidity and judgment of some vegetarians and then meanders into a comparison of the relative merits of low and high carbohydrate diets, and then the chapter ends. Several other chapters in the book suffer from a similar lack of focus and substance. The final third is a gem, however, with several profiles of spiritually incorrect "saints" such as Dorothy Day, Henry Nouwen and Reynolds Price. These are people Wakefield knows or has known personally, and his insight into their lives is the strongest element of the book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rupa Publications India
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 812911853X
• ISBN 13: 9788129118530
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180