On the shelf: Out of Darkness, Into Light by Jamal Rahman, Kathleen Schmitt Elias and Ann Holmes Redding

by Amy Frykholm

It's difficult to push past platitudes when discussing someone else's faith. How do you meaningfully engage in dialogue without either asserting your own superiority or lapsing into "all faiths are really one"? How do you share the intricacies of intellect, emotion and experience that constitute a life of faith if you're talking with someone who doesn't share that faith?

Most of us, I would venture to guess, don't make much of an effort. If we have interfaith friendships, we talk about kids and dogs and sports—maybe even politics—but avoid religion.

For those interested in going deeper, I recommend Out of Darkness Into Light. This is not a guide for interfaith dialogue, since it assumes that one has already accepted that other people's faith traditions can illuminate one's own. Instead it is a guidebook for spiritual practice. Sufi teacher Jamal Rahman, about whom I have written before, has teamed up again with two friends—Jewish scholar Kathleen Schmitt Elias and Christian scholar Ann Holmes Redding—to write about the "spiritual path."

Rahman begins each section of the book with a meditation from the Quran, using themes such as finding spiritual teachers, the mystery of God and how to pray. Elias and Redding build on Rahman's reflections in brief essays about how Jewish and Christian traditions make use of these themes.

The book is divided into three sections: "Spiritual Guidance in the Abrahamic Traditions," "The Mysteries of Life" and "The Path of Surrender and Provisions for the Journey." These themes don't always weave together seamlessly, and they shouldn't—religious traditions are not all perfectly matched at every turn. The structure of using Islam as the opening context also sometimes produces a "me, too" tone in some of the Jewish and Christian essays.

At the same time, this book contains a wealth of Muslim, Christian and Jewish texts that shed light on what this journey toward God might be about. After reading the book, I understand all three Abrahamic traditions more deeply and feel more akin to all three, while also understanding better why and how my roots are Christian.