Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
NO ONE WRITES in isolation. Always we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and hope against hope that present and future readers will give attention to our efforts. When a work gives special attention to history, the debt increases doubly and tripley. And so I must begin by expressing profound gratitude to all those through the centuries who have lived so faithfully and to all those who have so faithfully recorded the experiences of their lives.
In addition, many people have helped me think through the issues and structure of this book. In particular, the early members of our RENOVARÉ team have worked with me by teaching, preaching, and clarifying the themes of this book. I thank them each one: Edward England, Marti Ensign, Roger Fredrikson, James Bryan Smith, Donn Thomas, William L. Vaswig, Dallas Willard.
Editors are indispensable members of the writing team. They encourage, guide, prod, console. I thank Patricia Klein of HarperSanFrancisco, who has been the editor for this project. As a labor of love several individuals read through the entire manuscript, sharing their thoughts, insights, and corrections. I thank them for helping to make this a better, more readable book: Bruce Demarest, Carolynn Foster, Lynda Graybeal, and Gayle Withnell. Special thanks to Joan Skulley for caring for many office details during the last months of writing. In addition, Tim Boyd with his expertise in church history, Bill Griffin with his understanding of Roman Catholicism, and Warren Farha with his knowledge of Eastern Orthodoxy helped make the appendices more accurate than they would have been otherwise.
I must add that Carolynn was far more than just a reader of the manuscript. She has lived with my obsession of many years with the ideas of this book. In the pressured final months of writing she took over literally all the responsibilities of home and family. Whenever I was convinced the project was too daunting, she urged me on. Whenever I was convinced the writing was so bad that it would be a mercy to consign it to the fireplace, she said it was good and would be better. Whenever I got too cocky, thinking I was producing a magnum opus, she found the words to bring me back to reality. (Actually, words often were unnecessary; a quizzical look or a slight lift of the eyebrows was sufficient.) She is the most precious person in my life—I thank her.
I am keenly aware that words are, at best, “frozen thought” and cannot adequately express the life of the streams of devotion described in this book. Only Jesus, the living Word of God, transcends this limitation. I can only pray that he will take these words and use them to breathe life into your soul.
Richard J. Foster
Ash Wednesday 1998