Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness & Light
“Within each of us is a divine treasure, and if we hope to discover it, we need to go deep into the heart of who we are.” —Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart has been a huge figure in spirituality for more than eight hundred years—spiritual leaders such as Eckhart Tolle, Richard Rohr, and Matthew Fox have all credited Eckhart as being an important influence on their thought.
This book of Meister Eckhart meditations is for people seeking the “wayless way.” It is not for those looking for a simple path. These fresh, stunning renderings of Eckhart’s writings in poetic form bring life to one of the great spiritual voices of any age. They reveal what it means to love God and find meaning in darkness. Not darkness in general, but your darkness, because it is the one thing you know something about—without facing your darkness, you’ll never know what it means to desire the light. Only when you are in the darkness, Meister says, do you have even the possibility of seeing the light.
“What Coleman Barks has done for Rumi, Sweeney and Burrows have done for Eckhart—making his insight accessible and his wisdom sing.” —Carl McColman, author of The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Eternal Heart
“Sweeney and Burrows, in poems that are as elegant as they are scholarly, revoice Meister Eckhart’s grounding and expansive instructions to ‘seek the light that shines / out of the darkness.’” —Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet and host of Poetry Unbound, from On Being Studios
Meister Eckhart (12601328) was a priest, a mystic, and nearly a heretic (he died before the Church court's verdict). In recent centuries, the Roman Catholic establishment has rehabilitated him, and the late John Paul II spoke of his work with fondness.
Jon M. Sweeneyis an independent scholar, critic, and writer. Several of his books have become History Book Club, BOMC, and QPB selections. His book,The Pope Who Quit, was optioned by HBO. He served as an editor at Jewish Lights and Paraclete Press and is currently editor-at-large at Orbis Books. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Mark S. Burrows is a poet, translator, and professor of religion and literature at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences in Bochum, Germany. His poetry has appeared in Poetry, The Cortland Review, Southern Quarterly, Weavings, and a number of other periodicals.