Love's Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life

I bought this book for a friend who loves poetry. Another friend recommended Scott Cairns’ poetry, so I got a “taste” of his writings (love the ability to ‘Look inside the book’) and I liked what I read.I also wanted a new book since it was to be a gift. The book was in mint condition! The only thing that puzzled me was the blank, white label on the upper right corner of the absolutely first page. Maybe that was provided so I could write a short message to my friend....? I chose not to do so.Everything else was great! It also came when promised. I wouldn’t hesitate to do business with this seller again.

This is a collection of writings from both Eastern and Western Church Fathers and Christian mystics. What I think makes it so special and very pleasant to read, is the fact that Scott Cairns renders the writings into colloquial English, at the same time managing to preserve the dignity of the original. This has the effect of immediacy, bringing the saint's message in each case into direct contact with our current condition as modern readers, as if we're listening to the words of a wise and friendly contemporary. An excellent collection, and a joy to add to my library!

The thoughts and prayers of several EO men and women through the ages re-styled with modern, mild poetic flavor in the English language. A wonderful book for part of one's devotional time.

this book is not quite a book of poetry for poets. rather, if you are unfamiliar with mysticism, christianity, church history, or orthodoxy and don't want to read a treatise, this is a book for you. beautifully rendered but merely translations.

An beautiful and revealing look into the early Christian mystics that is accessible to anyone. So refreshing in a time when words and insights like these are sorely needed.

Love's Immensity - Mystics on the Endless Lifeby Scott CairnsWe are but dim reflections of a love so true, a light so pure, a life so alive. Created in the image of God, we still carry the haunting beauty of his touch despite our falling and failing. Reading Scott Cairns' new volume of poetry, "Love's Immensity," I am reminded of the hope of restored glory that shines from our "gleaming Liberator Jesus Christ."Drawing from the writings of early Church Fathers, desert monastics and Medieval mystics, Cairns weaves a wondrous cord of images and words that capture the beauty of our creation and restoration through God's transforming presence. Translating always offers challenges for the reader and the writer. Are we reading the translator or the original writer? How does a translator capture ideas that are not translatable?Cairns addresses some of this complexing challenge by addressing the challenge of translating "nous," a word common in early church and Eastern Orthodox writings. This multi-layered idea is not easily translated. When we interpret "nous" as mind or heart, we tend to rob the word of nuanced implications by reducing the meaning to our deficient and disconnected understanding of mind and body.So Cairns writes, "There is one word .. that I have decided for the most part not to translate at all, hoping that we might acquire a renewed sense of the word itself, and hoping that we might dodge the diminishments of its uniformly unsatisfactory translation." Since "nous" and "noetic prayer" are fundamental ideas in many ancient writings, it worthwhile to try and penetrate some of what the New Testament and early church writers meant when they used this word.Cairns attempts to open the richness of the word by explaining it as follows:It is the center of the human person, where mind and and matter meet most profoundly, and where the human person is mystically united to others and God. I have written elsewhere that an "individual does not a person make." Personhood--if the Image of God is relevant here--is revealed in relationship, and the nous is the faculty that enables and performs just such a relationship. (xiv)That succinct explanation conveys the richness and the beauty of this word. It is a hint of the beauty that is to come as Cairns begins to unfold the prayers and teachings of our forebears. Again and again I am drawn to his phrasing that brings alive the beauty of these writers that has often been hidden in the dusty translations of scholarship. Capturing the provocative spirit of Athanasius, he uses words like "dim occasions," "slow senses" and "beloved numbskulls" to address the slow and struggling people of God.In spite of our blindness, God makes a way for us to see. So we hear Athanasius proclaim, "As we had turned from cosmos--the beauty above, light-laden--and sought Him in the muck among created things, the God in His great love took to Himself an earthen body." God comes to meet in the midst of slow and dim senses. He comes to restore the true icons of God, "our faces."Reading Cairns' new book is not a rush to the finish. Rather it is a stroll in the garden of heavenly delights. For in these short prayers and poems and sermons, we encounter presence: the presence of these great saints who went before us, the presence of Scott Cairns in his lovely words of translation and another Presence. This book could help some to slow down, listen, wait and behold God's love.I think this little treasure is a helpful prayer book that might give us words to express the longings of our heart. Words like this prayer from St. Basil, "Pierce our souls with love, so that--attending to You always, being lighted by You, and glimpsing You, O unapproachable, everlasting LIght--we may offer confession and speak our joyful thanks to You."

In the preface of this volume, Scott Cairns begins: “This collection is a mere taste of the bountiful feast that awaits any who would pursue a life of faith and prayer, equipped with both the holy Scriptures and the holy tradition that surrounds them.”He goes on to say, “This book offers some of that tradition, and its purpose is to make available—in what I hope is a pleasing form—some of the spiritual guidance offered by the mothers and fathers who have walked this particular Way before us. Their words have been rendered here in verse, and—one prays—in poetry as well. It is safe to say that the originals were all poetry, though they were not all verse. I have re-translated where I both could and felt that I should; I have “adapted” virtually everywhere else, hoping to press a range of existing—and what I took to be insufficiently suggestive—translations into more generous terms, whose evocative figurations might yet come into play, yielding more rather than less.”And in the Prologue, Scott quotes from “The Cloud of the Unknowing,” asking the reader “to read slowly, and thoroughly, tasting each word’s trouble.”I made the mistake of trying to rush through this volume of spiritual quotes, rendered as verse, because of the clean simple layout. What I began realizing is that there were so many voices to be heard, that I was jumbling them in my mind. I eventually slowed down, deciding to read one voice per day, and thereby the confusion ceased and I was able to hear more clearly.There is an inherent unity to what the great Christian mystics say about the immensity of God’s love, as well as their love for God. Scott has selected voices from both the Christian East and the Christian West, perhaps to underscore the point that there is no schism when it comes to those who actively pursue God’s love.While each voice is uniquely rendered on these pages, Scott’s voice also comes through, both in the way he lays out these writings as verse, and also in some of his translations. My only quibble is the way he often chose to refer to God as “the God.” I found myself stopping every time I encountered this to ask myself what his point was. I would’ve preferred the more simple use of “God,” as that is how we usually refer to our Divine Father in speech.Having said that, I enjoyed this volume, and I hope that it leads me to read more of these Christian mystics in their entirety.