Denise Lardner Carmody, 23 January 1995

The world over, billions of human beings have sought the meaning of their lives through major religious traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, Judaism and Christianity and Islam. We American Christians remain crippled in our estimates of both human variety and the graces of God if we do not know at least the rudiments of what these traditions have done for those who have adhered to them. Among all the adherents of the world religions, the mystics, those who appear to experience ultimate reality most directly, stand out for the depth of their penetration of the holy ground of the world and the ardor of their love of what is most fully real.