"To take care of each other should be our primary concern in this 21st century and Father Dear is steady on this course."
--Thich Nhat Hanh
For John Dear, a Jesuit priest and respected leader of the ecumenical peace movement, the spiritual life is a combination of contemplation and action, of maintaining inner peace and projecting that peace into the greater world. It is the spirituality exemplified by the lives of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and others throughout history who remained true to the highest ideals while addressing the most difficult problems and conflicts of the real world.
As a tireless advocate for social justice and human rights, Dear has followed that path in his own life, and in Living Peace he describes his journey. Breaking down the life of peace into three parts an inner journey, a public journey, and the journey of all humanity he shares the spiritual practices that have sustained him and teaches readers how to integrate these practices into their own lives.
Advance Praise for John Dear's Living Peace:
"Living Peace is a deeply moving and profoundly inspiring account of John Dear's journey of enviable courage, boundless faith, unquestioned hope, and unconditional love."
--Martin Sheen
"John Dear is a bright young light in the religious peace movement. Living Peace shows the deep spiritual roots of his commitment."
--Jim Wallis, Editor-in-Chief, Sojourners
"Some teachers are all theory and some all practice. John Dear has the earned ability to be both. Some teachers are very orthodox and some open new ground. John Dear puts the two together knowing they are the same. This fine book is a prototype of the spirituality that is both contemplation and action, put together by a man who has first put them together in his own life."
--Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action & Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico
"John Dear's inspired journey inside and out gives us renewed hope for our own personal and public peacemaking. Living Peace is a beautiful reminder of our sacred identity."
--Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
"What a splendid, hopeful handbook John Dear has placed in our hands!"
--Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
"In Living Peace John Dear shows we can enjoy peace only if we respect each other; and we can respect each other only if we have an appreciation of each other's beliefs."
--Arun Gandhi, Founder-Director, M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
"No matter what religious affiliation or nonaffiliation a reader might have, Living Peace is a must read. It is brimming with hope. It is a message like "living water" for the traveler lost in the desert and dying of thirst. Nobody will lose by obtaining a copy of this book."
--Johann Christoph Arnold, author of Seeking Peace
