James A. Autry, author of Looking Around for God, thinks that the true message of the old spiritual is not just that God has an eye on the sparrow— it’s that God is demonstrating that if these details are worth God’s attention they are certainly worth ours. It may be that we will more readily find God in the details of this world— and of our own lives— than anywhere else.
Looking Around for God, Autry’s tenth book, is in many ways his most personal, as he considers his unique life of faith and belief in a God often clouded by church convention. In assembling these personal essays, stories and poems, Autry strives to share how God has been revealed in many different circumstances of his life, while at the same time offering a few ideas for how the Christian church might better serve in making God’s love and presence manifest in the world.
Reviews
As you read Looking Around For God, you might as well be adding up everyone you love, or have ever loved. Whatever the figure, it will be the exact amount of people with whom you will wish to share this extraordinary gift.
—Norman Lear
I loved this book! Sweeping aside conventional pieties, Jim Autry’s clear insights, told with wit and poetry, show how we may see traces of the divine shining through our everyday world.
—Elaine Pagels
Harrington Professor of Religion
Princeton University
Yes, it’s true: I did urge Jim Autry to write this book. For lesser sins the Good Lord may yet forgive me; this one could be unpardonable.
—Bill Moyers
from the Foreword
We don’t hear the phrase “Christian gentleman” much these days, but that is what James Autry is: generous, large-hearted, tolerant, funny, a man who finds the love of God wherever he can, who pays attention with his heart. Looking Around for God is a book vivid with life and fulfillments. Its honesty is deeply moving, and its irreverence is actually a form of reverence. It’s a book that Jesus would have enjoyed.
—Stephen Mitchell
Translator of the Tao Te Ching
In a few deft strokes, in one fell swoop, Jim Autry picks at the most profound presuppositions of belief, tickles the intellect, pricks the conscience, and kicks us all in the seat of the pants.
—James M. Dunn
The Divinity School at Wake Forest University
In this wonderful collection of prose and poetry, Jim Autry writes about the spirit and the church with such an unorthodox slant, one wonders if he isn't a prophet. The man's a born poet, maybe even a frustrated preacher. It's a rare gift; an exploration of how much faith there is in doubt and how much grace there is in poetry.
—Patricia DeJong
Senior Minister
First Congregational Church of Berkeley, CA
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