I can think of only two reasons to read this book:
1. You are not going to the Holy Land.
2. You are going to the Holy Land.
In these pages Ruth Everhart writes eloquently about her trip into the dust and beauty of Christianitys cradleabout her wrestling with her beliefs, her faith, and her past. If all pilgrims were as curious, insightful, intropesctive, firm, and openhearted as Ruth Everhart, our old world would roll more happily and safely through the universe. In her story youll find bloodshed, humor, andmost importantlylove.
-Clyde EdgertonLike George Gershwins American in Paris, Ruth Everharts memoir of an American Protestant in the Holy Land trips through a whirlwind of sights, sounds, conversations, questions, and revelations. The pace and first-person perspective effectively convey the disorienting (and holy) mess that results from putting our sanitized faith into a tangible contextwhere dust and dispute, pomegranates and politics, armed soldiers and traveling pilgrims coexist. Everhart lays bare her struggles and assumptions so that we have room to examine our own, and offers us her journey so that we might witness the mobility of holiness as it contrasts with our desire for a locatable Jesus. Ultimately chasing the divine in the Holy Land teaches us again the value of seeking, losing, and rediscovering the divine every day.
-Rachel G. Hackenberg
I cannot imagine a better guide into the holy land than Ruth Everhart. Every page of Chasing the Divine conjures Everharts fierce intellect and sacred passion. With each step she takes, her engrossing descriptions point us beyond Sunday School sentimentality and challenge us to grapple with the blood and violence that pulse through the dust. More than just touring the land, Everhart teaches us to become pilgrims.
-Carol Howard Merritt