Seeking the Sacred: Transforming Our View of Ourselves and One Another

Stephanie Dowrick, Jeremy P. Tarcher

Seeking the Sacred covers five themes: Reverence, Identity, Love, Do No Harm and Transformation. Dowrick draws on the teachings of many different religions and commentary as well as personal stories to explore these themes.

Dowrick is an interfaith minister, psychotherapist and a writer whose main emphasis here is to encourage searching for the sacred. Dowrick defines sacred as a “source as well as inspiration for profound inner transformation”.

She writes: “It is an opening of the heart and training of the mind. It identifies holiness and brings it. The sacred is the source of being for many and the meaning of life for many more. It may also be ‘God’ but not inevitably.”

A number of Uniting Church people’s thoughts and observations are mentioned in this book. They include: Graham Long who talked about praying for a woman at Wayside Chapel, Douglas Purnell on “getting lost” and Barbara Oldmeadow, who talks about pilgrimage. Dowrick also describes the interfaith services she holds at Pitt St. Uniting Church.

I enjoyed the descriptions of worship in ancient times, including an Egyptian prayer and Sumerian hymn

Katy Gerner