A Sensible God

By Sean O'Laoire

Book Overview

A SENSIBLE GOD This, the third volume in the series, comes from a Celtic soul, a scientific mind and a poetic heart. It is a book of stories and scriptures, of science and psychology, of theology and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1436371376
• ISBN13: 9781436371377
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Xlibris
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Delightful Essays on the Most Profound Issues

åSean O'Laoire I don't always find God sensible, but Sean O'laoire sees God as making sense and also being discovered through the senses, through the discoveries of science, math and the grace of dewdrops on a spider web in the early morning sun. Many people are exploring the meaning of life using different religious traditions, mystical writings and personal experience. Their statements are remarkably similar. They are not copying each other but probing the same reality. They are grappling with traditional religion, mystical experience, modern science and the new global unity. Sean O'Laoire beautifully handles all of these themes, and I think much better than most others. The great sages of our era... Gandhi, Dali Lama, Thomas Merton... are eloquent as well as profound. But Sean O'Laoire is wilder, funnier, more scientifically grounded and wittier than most. He is a wonderful combination of precise thinking and wild imagination rooted in awkward black beetles in the dust and mathematics. It is not self consciously clever, but rather a lighthearted awareness that God lives in the silliest places. Who else would imagine a hummingbird, spider, horsefly and horse happily meeting in afterlife where they congenially share reasons for killing eating each other? They were all one. Who else would describe scientific reasoning as God giving a little boy a universe, and being a boy, taking it apart to see how it worked? His wit is a display of wisdom, his imagination is grounded in science and his rigorous thinking is disciplined by mathematics. God is the coyote trickster of Native American lore who pops up in everything from the four fundamental forces of the cosmos to the delightful, insane directions given by an old Irishman who tells how to get somewhere by telling you where not to go. Sean O'Laoire often gives retreats, which usually contain a "death march." Those foolish enough to go along begin their hike on a well-marked path, but then he starts leading them to places he has never been, through the brush, dead end canyons, cliffs and marshes. They return exhausted but exhilarated having been to places they never imagined. Each person finds something familiar and different because the guides takes you there but doesn't tell you what to see.

If these are the times that try men's souls, then your soul should try this book on for size

I have read all three of Sean O'Laoire's books. This is the best. It's a beautiful combination of poems, short stories and, what I have come to expect, deep mystical thinking. I laughed out loud at many of the humorous anecdotes from his childhood in Ireland; shed tears over his beautiful poetry about nature, and was inspired by the depth of Sean's spirituality. The author is that rare combination of mind, heart and soul. This a book to keep and to cherish.