Here is a book that provides an accessible account of some of the church’s most profound, if at times eccentric, examples of Christian spiritual discipline. Sittser’s biographical essays are set within a framework of the principle movements and themes of spirituality through the broad sweep of Christian history. Though the book is generally chronological certain chapters overlap in time sequence. There are also thematic connections between some of the movements.

Sittser’s work is well suited for use as a text in spiritual formation classes. He writes with clarity and without heavy reliance on theological jargon, making the book accessible to the layperson seeking guidance toward a more satisfying spiritual walk. The author invites the reader to engage in thoughtful reflection on past master’s of spiritual discipline. All the while he instructs, like a good mentor should, on the practical application of the historic Christian disciplines in today’s setting.

Looking back on my experience at the technology conference, perhaps one thing we all had in common is how tepid much of our contemporary religious expression seems in comparison to the lives of these saints.

As a student of history, I find this novel’s treatment of primary source documents to be most telling from a pedagogical standpoint. Any historian views the discovery of a contemporaneous eye-witness account of a particular event as evidence of the highest order. The unfolding of this story is a good reminder that even the most carefully analyzed and thoroughly verified primary source may not reveal all the truth. Sometimes human perception can deceive us. On other occasions key testimony can become lost or essential details deliberately altered. Even the best primary source must be read with a healthy degree of skepticism and weighed against as much other evidence as possible.

Like the archeologist in the story, sometimes it is only in the unearthing of long held but somewhat vague memories, and exposing them to the light, that we find the power to redeem the past.

Unamuno gives much attention to the place of suffering in the development of human consciousness. In the margin of the text my class read back in ’79 I scratched the comment, “We can relate only to that which is like ourselves.” At this distance I wouldn’t hazard to guess what prompted me to make this notation but in the surrounding passage Unamuno explores how love, suffering, and consciousness are inextricably connected. The English translations of corresponding phrases from the two works can be compared.

"Pain is the route of consciousness; through pain beings reach self-consciousness." (TLG 11)

"Suffering is the path of consciousness; and by it living beings arrive at the possession of self-consciousness." (TSL 140)

This is the heart of Unamuno’s understanding that “we only pity what is similar to us.”(TLG 11) By his reasoning the object of love is always personalized and it is pain or suffering that engenders greater capacity for compassion. It is also interesting that Unamuno gives special attention to the suffering of God.

"For God reveals Himself to us because He suffers and because we suffer; Because He suffers He demands our love, and because we suffer He gives us life, and covers our misery with eternal, infinite misery."(TLG 46)

Perhaps this passage reflects his own spiritual journey from orthodox faith, to atheism, and finally to heterodoxy. The abandonment of his early Catholic upbringing and adoption of atheism after studying the great intellectual minds of the late 19th century left him dissatisfied. In rejection of nihilism he ultimately adopted a sort of naturalistic panentheism. It is as if his own fear of nothingness could only be resolved by personalizing God’s perpetually endless suffering. Could it be that Unamuno never quite found a way get beyond the crucifix?

By all means read Unamuno but read him with discernment. His ideas should not to be taken as those of an orthodox Christian theologian for they are certainly not intended as such. However, he does provide a good peak into the European intellectual milieu of a century ago. In this regard the notes of the translator, Nelson Orringer, are most helpful. His extensive annotations read like a veritable philosophical dictionary of the period.