Shadows of the Heart: Spirituality of the Negative Emotions - Hardcover

Shadows of the Heart explores the positive potential hidden in anger, guilt, shame, and depression. The book's key conviction: our bad feelings can be good news, alerting us to endangered values, alarming us to hopes under siege, and arming us for the tough tasks of change. Filled with lively examples, the book demonstrates how negative emotions can lead to personal growth, spiritual development, and social transformation. Family wounds, cultural temptations, and religious malpractice make it difficult for us to plumb the meaning of our passions; breaking through these obstacles is part of spirituality's healing task. In pursuit of such a spirituality, the authors draw on rich images of the Jewish-Christian heritage complemented by nuances from Chinese religious tradition. In so doing, they speak directly to the contemporary yearning for meaning, the hunger to make sense of our personal and shared lives. The result is a book that comforts, encourages and challenges.