Undiscovered Country

“Hawkins trusts a God who is rooted in human love even when that love is predictably frail or goes pitifully awry. He is a student of what it means to be 'up to love,' no matter how painful the lesson, which makes him the best kind of teacher. In the end, I think, that is what drives this book: his wish to teach us that our imagination of the afterlife has power to change our lives now.” —Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Leaving Church “A dazzling teacher, preacher, and scholar, Peter Hawkins is also a man possessed by big questions, not least whether life in this world is a dress rehearsal of sorts or the Big Show itself. This is beautiful book, attentive to the holiness of things not only as we imagine them to be, but also as they actually are.” —Stephen Prothero, author of the prize-winning Religious Literacy “In this lovely book, Peter Hawkins meditates upon Dante and the afterlife—the greatest of poets, the highest of hopes—with the art, insight, and generosity that these noble subjects deserve. His short text lingers long in the memory, calling believer and skeptic alike to ponder more deeply and imagine more richly the fate that awaits us all.” —Philip Zaleski, editor of The Best American Spiritual Writing series “Like Dante, Peter Hawkins is a master lay theologian. And like the Divine Comedy itself, whose cadences echo through these pages, his Beecher lectures deftly marry ascetic longings to aesthetic delights, and accomplish the task with wit, passion, and a stunning erudition both dearly won and lightly worn.” —Roger Ferlo, Virginia Theological Seminary