Peter BienReseñas

The author employs poetry and literature to reflect on the meaning of retirement and whether death is an unmitigated calamity. He concludes it is not better to live forever, and that strangely, death enhances life, rather than negating it.

Light is the central metaphor in the religious lives of Friends, but not of Friends alone. “The light that lighteth every person who cometh into the world” has served as an image of sacred mystery for ancient Hebrews and Greeks, for Dante, for modern poets, and theorists on the physics of electromagnetism. What has Light meant to different people throughout the ages? How did various ideas about Light influence the prologue to John’s Gospel? What did early Friends understand Light to mean? This pamphlet explores the theology and poetry of Friends’ favorite religious symbol.

What has light meant to different people throughout the ages? How did various ideas about light influence the prologue to John's Gospel? What did early Friends understand Light to mean? In this pamphlet, Peter Bien explores the theology and poetry of Friends favorite religious symbol.

The author employs poetry and literature to reflect on the meaning of retirement and whether death is an unmitigated calamity. He concludes it is not better to live forever, and that strangely, death enhances life, rather than negating it.

A literary scholar considers the paradoxical relationship of silence and words in Quaker worship, drawing on the work of EM Forster, Samuel Beckett, and classical Greek writers for insight.

The author analyzes Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ using a fourfold scheme devised by the novel's author, a non-Christian, to explain evolution towards dematerialization.

This quite wonderful pamphlet raises for us fundamental questions of spiritual development, as it provides a guide to Kazantzakis' great novel, The Last Temptation of Christ. He asks: what is spiritual growth for us humans in an oppressive and violent world? While readers may well not agree with some or all of Kazantzakis' answers, the questions will resonate and will challenge many readers to take another step along on their own paths, in any of several ways. Written in 1950-51, the novel transcends a literary context (as described by Bien) that seems rather dated, in terms of both psychoanalytic theory and scholarship on Jesus. It does this by means of its still- or ever-current understanding of spirit, spiritual development, and the human challenge, not to say predicament, of living in both material and spiritual reality.

Very philosophical and scholarly, this is an abstruse consideration of God and Being and/or Doing, of Silence and Words, of the Word, of divinity and reality. For the reader who is interested in this kind of discourse, there is value here. Fox and the early Quakers devised the silent meeting for worship to reconcile the spiritual need for silence with the human necessity for speaking. In meeting, the silent Word gives meaning to the messages, as the messages paradoxically give meaning to the silence. He illustrates his consideration of these things with literary examples.

A scholarly account of the evolution of Light as a spiritual metaphor. He includes an interesting and revealing discussion of the meaning of Inward Light to Quakers, with explanation and quotes.

Is death an unmitigated calamity? An evil? Would life be better if greatly prolonged or if death did not exist? Is life good in spite of death? Or does death enhance life? He quotes from classic literature. Our ultimate stance about death should be gratitude, for what we have been given, and also for finitude as a paradoxical blessing. His method is philosophy rather than spiritually gleaned wisdom.

Wow. Talk about bias. Bien was "a trustee off and on since 1977, serving on the publications committee." He has written two other PHP. I wonder if they are any better?

Of course, I missed the subtitle "A Literary Excursion," so I suppose it isn't Bien's fault that I was expecting a book on Kendal communities, what it is like to live in one, etc. Instead, it contained poetry translated from the Greek, comparisons to the Odyssey and to Gulliver's Travels. Luckily it was a short read and so the pain of reading it was minimized.

a beautiful collection of modern greek poetry, some nice poetic retellings of the myths and gods. Features some of the poetic work of the famous Yannis Ritsos.

2006: Excellent discussion of the Light. Main idea I take from it is that it is not the "Inner" Light, but is the "Light Within." It is not "all about me," not something "I" have earned, or achieved, or even have as my birthright, but is something given to me by Grace, though Bien didn't go that far. Grace comes to me from without and I must be open to its reception. This is probably what the NFF meant to convey when it wrote that Rufus Jones never used the term "Inner Light."

2013: what in the world is NFF?
2017: maybe New Friends Foundation? (a Christocentric Friends group)

PHP #384

PHP #368

PHP #303

PHP #253

Demotic Greek