Watershed: Turning points on the spiritual
road
Michael Ford
DLT £9.99
(978-0-232-52872-5)
Church Times Bookshop £9 (Use code CT231
)
WATERSHED is about choosing our direction in life and
how those choices make "all the difference".
Ford, a journalist, is drawn to people who have faced one crisis
or another. All of them show that, far from letting the crisis
overwhelm them, they have moved into newness of life.
We are faced with choice and its cost, the balance between
stability and change, with hurt and healing, with hope amid deep
loss. We meet people who struggle and come to faith. We explore the
need to find reality amid illusion, and explore also the areas of
abandonment to God and of trust.
The book begins in New York after 9/11 with Lt. Col. Cleary, who
was in the Pentagon when a hijacked plane crashed into it. Also
from this time, we are told of Anne McHugh, who sacrificed her life
for others. The third person from New York, a niece of Mario Lanza,
was an actress with Elvis, and gave him his first on-screen kiss.
Yet she felt an inner voice calling her to become a nun, and is now
the prioress of a Benedictine community.
We meet Bruno Tonioli, and the hard decisions about leaving home
and community. Among others, we encounter a father whose son was
killed in the Omagh bombing, and Grace Sheppard facing terminal
cancer. Finally, we discover that Ford has offered himself for the
priesthood. I hope that he will prove that the words quoted from
Maggie Ross, "ordination is spiritual suicide," are not always
correct.
David Adam
Canon Adam is a former Vicar of Holy Island