Giving Up god to Find God: Breaking Free of Idolatry Paperback – September 1, 2013

I have been a fan of Kerry Walters' books for many years, primarily because of his radical contemplative stance. In addition, they are written in beautiful English. Soul Wilderness, for instance, is pure poetry. When he announced several years ago that he was going to stop writing for a while, I wrote and asked him to keep going, and he was kind enough to respond personally. I never gave up hope though, and regularly checked Amazon for new books by him. On my last foray I discovered "Giving up god to find God" and just finished reading it. In clear and sometimes humorous language, Walters describes the various "images" of God that all of us, at some time or another, create and worship. Instead of seeing ourselves as created in God's image and likeness, we reverse the roles and create a god --an idol-- to OUR own image and likeness, a god that is a projection of our needs, our fears, and our temperament. Recognizing which god(s) we worship is an important part of the spiritual journey."Giving up god to find God" is in the line of "Soul Wilderness", especially its excellent concluding chapter, where Khora shows up again. As always, Walters invites us to the radical surrender of mysticism or contemplation, as I prefer to call it. The title of the book is taken from Meister Eckhart, who wrote in an uncompromising language that was seriously misunderstood in his time (and in ours) and which landed him into a lot of trouble. Along the same lines, we find The Cloud of Unknowing, which Walters cites, and Marguerite Porete's "Mirror of Simple Souls", which landed her into even more trouble than the one experienced by Eckhart. Contemplative language tends to be misunderstood, since it is impossible to express the ineffable in words. In the last chapter of this book, Walters establishes an important distinction between God as gained and received by us, and God as he is, as pure Mystery. Father Thomas Keating in our day makes a similar distinction between what he calls the "manifested nature of God" and the "unmanifested nature of God." The manifested nature of God is true and important, but eventually it must be given up and left behind under the "cloud of forgetting," in order to leap through our naked intent into the "cloud of unknowing", into the Mystery that God is. So, we not only have to give up god (idols) to find God, we must also give up God to find God, as paradoxical as it sounds. Read the book and you will see what it means :))We all have to start somewhere, so the creation of idols seems to be an inescapable part of the spiritual journey. The real problem is that our fears are such that we tend to get stuck in immature levels of relationship with God. We are scared to say yes, to consent to God's relentless call, which beckons us to leap into the arms of Love, into the abyss of God as Mystery, into the realm of Khora.My only reservation with this book is that its brief description of the process of transformation from the false self into the true self comes across as a bit forceful, as if this is something that WE can do through sheer discipline of the will. Needless to say, a discipline of prayer and service is essential in the spiritual journey, but since the forces that drive the false self are often rooted in the unconscious, we depend on God's merciful revelation and healing. Our primary role is to cooperate with the process, to say yes to it, to "let God be" in us, as Walters calls it. From his other books, especially "Soul Wilderness", I know that Walters agrees with this way of looking at the transformative process, but in this one it comes across as a bit "muscular".This is a fantastic book, highly recommended. If the reader is not familiar with contemplative practice, the last chapter may be a bit difficult to understand. And if you have not read "Soul Wilderness" just click on the "buy it now with one click" button. I will be giving this book as a Christmas gift to friends with whom I share my love for Walters' works. Thank you, Kerry Walters, for saying yes to your writing ministry.

Finally! A Kerry Walters book on the Kindle! Thank goodness!Anyway... I really loved this book. It was very clear and smart and read like poetry. Kerry goes through several idols that we worship. I worship or have worshipped almost all of them! (Who knows, I'm sure I have been victim to all at some time in my life).He exposes our fears which create prejudice and restrictions on a limitless God. His definitions of each idolator are concise and, while he makes it very clear what exactly the damages are that are caused by each idol are (aside from delusion and not giving the true God worship he deserves), he does not do so in a condemning manner. He makes it clear that he himself is an idolator and that we ALL are, generally to more than one of the idols he discusses!He ends the book with a view made clear by Meister Eckhart, a medieval mystic who was controversial for his time, but which most (all?) of that controversy has been lifted. Meister Eckhart essentially came to the conclusion that God was beyond... things. Kerry uses the term No-thing.. (I think he uses this term because he was not implying absence, nothing, as well as to separate the term from eastern religions). God is No-thing, he is beyond space and time. So when we try to describe him using words and ideas, all of which are mainly based around 'things', we are describing a god not worthy of the true God. Not that words and poetry and music and liturgy etc are bad. They can be beautiful and worshipful. But we must realize that God is much more than our words can describe or our minds comprehend. And when we think that we've perfectly described him or imagined him, then we have become worshippers of a god, an idol.This book is helping me to realize the different idols which I worship and follow and helping to keep me clear from them. By sketching out the details, he's made me realize many idols I've worshipped in place of God. I highly recommend this book for everyone.

Very interesting & pertinent-to-our times, is how I would describe Giving up god to find God!!! The service from Amazon was prompt & uncomplicated!!!Thank you,Nina B. Klee

After a compelling review in The Lutheran magazine, requested and received the bookas a gift. Excellent throughout, it will be read and re-read. Never stuffy, only stimulating.