The Way of the Word: A Conversation Between Christ and the Dao De Jing

By Michael Collins

What might happen if the wisdom of Laozi were allowed to sit beside the teachings of Jesus-not to argue, compete, or become the same, but simply to share the silence?

The Way of the Word is a contemplative journey through all eighty-one chapters of the Dao De Jing. It imagines an elder who has spent a lifetime walking both landscapes. He has wandered through bamboo forests and along the shores of Galilee, listened to mountain streams and the parables of the Carpenter, and discovered familiar echoes of wisdom in both.

Through poetic reflections on water, yielding, simplicity, humility, non-striving, compassion, and wu wei, each chapter invites the reader to loosen the need for control and become attentive to the quiet Presence already near.

This is not an attempt to turn Daoism into Christianity or Christianity into Daoism. It is an invitation to listen-to let two ancient streams flow beside one another and notice where their waters illuminate the same human longing.

For followers of Jesus curious about the wisdom of the Dao, and for contemplative seekers drawn to both traditions, these pages offer a gentler way of walking:

Softness rather than rigidity.
Yielding rather than forcing.
Generosity rather than grasping.
Presence rather than striving.

Perhaps wisdom is not something we possess.

Perhaps it is a stream we learn to enter.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HG5VN7BX
• ISBN13: 9798192879931
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"