The Haunt of Grace: Exploring the Mysteries of God's Presence

Ted Loder is a master storyteller and a wise preacher whose understanding of the human situation, and the divine response to it/us, is filled with nuance, ambiguity, blood, sweat, tears, laughter and love. You don't just read this book, you imbibe it and come away nourished and changed and ready for the long haul. I can't think of a better way to start the new year.

Whenever I read Ted Loder's writing, whether it's Guerillas of Grace, My Heart in My Mouth or The Haunt of Grace, my experience is consistent. Feelings I am unable to express, experiences I cannot articulate and nebulous connections which I cannot explain in a coherent way are, all of a sudden, made plain. As I read, I have on occasion, said out loud, "Yes, that's what I mean, that's what I feel." What a relief to know that someone can capture that inarticulated part of my life!

This is a leaping book; it leaps out and grabs you--even if you don't have a sermon-bone in your body. The movies are here: "Saving Private Ryan," "Dead Man Walking"; the poets: James Dickey, Emily Dickinson, W. H. Auden; the musicians: Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis; the theologians: H. Richard Niebuhr, William Coffin; the physicists, anthropologists, the New York "Times" columnists, the "Christian Century" and "New Yorker" authors. Ted Loder goes a'leaping with each of these as he explores the mysteries of love, of faith, and, particularly, of grace. Much of the book is poetry, leaping with allusions, metaphors and similes (God tattooing our makeshift lives, gratitude coming through the back door, jazz imitating God, people in buzzard flops). This is not another one of those self-help books nor is it a book replete with answers. Rather it poses life-baffling challenges in ways that will stop you in your reading tracks to ponder Loder's responses. As he writes in his introduction, "In every case, these responses reflect my belief that the world of faith, or religion, or the Bible is not separable from the world of our present experience, the world of science, reason, practicality, art, invention, day-to-day commerce--what is commonly referred to as the 'real world.'" After the leaping, the book will haunt you for a long time.

The Rev. Ted Loder, more than anyone I know, is able to take common things of life, well-worn clichés and oft told stories from the Bible, and uncover in them a new nugget of truth, a mother lode of meaning which he mines for surprising insights into the presence and grace of God. In one of his essays he wove the common phrase, "In your face," into the words in the movie, Dead Man Walking, spoken by Sister Helen Prejean, "I'll be the face of love for you," to the terrified convicted murderer, Matthew Poncelot as he is about to be executed, and hung them on the frame of the apostle Paul's prompting us to let the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shine in our hearts. Rev. Loder concluded: "The gospel is God saying, `I am the face of love for you. Whoever you are, I am with you. Wherever your are, I am there in love for you in every face you see, in the face of creation itself.'" This book gave me the adult counter part of delight I experienced as a child when I opened the doors of the dates on the Advent Calendar to find the wonderful miniature scenes which were depicted behind the dates. In each chapter in the book, indeed, in paragraph after paragraph. Ted Loder opens doors on a beautiful metaphor or poem or scene that enlightens a current situation with the presence of God, the haunt of the grace. I find this book an excellent read during my time of devotions.

Loder's words are like gatorade for the soul. No soothing bromides, here. He is far too original a thinker to weigh us down in feel good cliches. Instead, we get refreshing, powerful insight. Reading this work is the most stimulating spiritual exploration you can make. He begins with the bind we all are in: "...torn between throwing our arms around those most precious to us and hunkering down or throwing our arms around the torn, trembling world and trying to save it." Here is a guide for finding our way out.