Taking a Long Road Home. Eugene C. Bianchi

This memoir invites readers to explore stages of their own spiritual journey. Bianchi graphically describes his path from an Italian immigrant family on the West Coast, through twenty years as a Jesuit, to being a professor of religious studies at Emory University. As he develops a more this-worldly inner life, Bianchi struggles with church teachings about Christ, sexuality, and authority. He candidly reveals how failed marriages gave him a humbler grasp of meeting the transcendent in everyday problems. He embraces a contemplative spirituality that links Buddhist and Taoist practices with western mysticism. With a foot in Christianity, he shows how to walk a way of inter-spirituality as a meaningful road for the contemporary seeker. For Bianchi this involves becoming a metaphorical Christian as he moves away from religious certitudes of early life to find spirit in nature and humanity. Bianchi, a well-known writer on spiritual aging, challenges Baby Boomers to craft a contemplative life that works for them today. With his wife and two cats, he discovers a home for body and spirit along the banks of the Oconee River in Athens, Georgia.