Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian

by Ilia Delio

In this heartfelt and spirited memoir, bestselling author Ilia Delio, one of the most exciting thinkers on the frontier between religion and science, recounts a journey that took her from scientist to theologian, and from traditional cloistered nun to a leading proponent of evolution and “cyborg life.” From the Baltimore Catechism and the suburban malls of New Jersey, through a somewhat wild adolescence, to the halls of scientific research, to a monastic cloister, and to eventual home in a post-Vatican II experiment in religious life, hers is an account of awakening and spiritual adventure.Along the way we follow her discovery of the mystic-scientist Teilhard de Chardin, and her entry into the Franciscan view of the cosmos as “locus of God’s self-revelation and self-becoming.”

Genres: Catholic, Spirituality

234 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 21, 2019

About the author

Ilia Delio, OSF is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, D.C. and American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics and neuroscience and the importance of these for theology. She was born in Newark, New Jersey and is the youngest of four children.


Fordham University
Ph.D., Historical Theology
M.A. Historical Theology

Rutgers University Healthcare and Biomedical Sciences
Ph. D., Pharmacology

Seton Hall University
M.S., Biology

DeSales University
B.S., Biology

Reviews

[Elizabeth Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big Ilia Delio fan (my partner calls her "our girlfriend"), so when this genius Franciscan scholar came out with a spiritual memoir, I knew I had to read it. BIRTH OF A DANCING STAR traces Delio's path from Catholic childhood into the upper escalations of pharmaceutical research, into a monastic cloister, and eventually to her work bridging science and theology. I'm glad to have had this intimate glimpse into her life, especially since her cosmology has been hugely formative for me. As a memoir, however, it's more an account than a shaped narrative--a bit disappointing. Ah, well. After CHRIST IN EVOLUTION and THE EMERGENT CHRIST, she deserves a bit of a break!

[Julia Keegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest and Stretching

I think Ilia has given a very honest, revealing, summary of her life to date. It is filled with struggle, joy, and a deep desire to be faithful to God’s call within her heart. It is filled with a holistic perspective calling us to a non-dualistic view of life that unites the material and the spiritual, science and religion, the mind and the heart. She stretches us to look at the cyborg reality in our world as helping us to evolve in ways we can barely imagine. She suggests the internet has the ability to help us to evolve consciousness by exposing its ability to share the pool of knowledge and to stretch us. Her words powerfully pointing to love as the center and source of all reality is core to everything. She celebrates God as love and Teilhard’s perspective of love as the energy that draws all things to life and sets the stage for our future. Being hopeful about our ability to evolve is powerful. Her own life is the best example of how we evolve our consciousness and how we put our trust in this God of love.

[Mary Diebel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love is what we are

Someone recommended this. Not sure who. I liked it over all, though there were many things I didn't understand. I need to reread this, more of her books, some teilhard de Chardon books. There was lots in this book about love and the postmodern human. And love and science. Lots to contemplate.
My favorite part was when she mentioned an Ursuline nun named Sr. Lucy who taught science in Alaska. I knew her!

[Brenda Peddigrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truthful, beautiful, expanding to read!

This is an amazing read from one of the most spiritual and simultaneously intelligent women alive! I could not out it down. Seldom is a memoir as truthful, balanced and beautiful, engaging and inviting as this one. My soul, heart and mind were nourished all at once with Ilia's living intelligence. (Brenda Peddigrew, RSM)

[Don Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a number of Ilia Delio's books and this is great. It's more from the heart than any of her previous books. She had a remarkable transformation in her life and beliefs and she does a great job of telling that story. I found this book easy to read and difficult to put down. She gave me insights into my own journey of the soul that I had not found elsewhere. She is a prophetic voice for our time. This book belongs with the classics like Merton's Seven Storey Mountain.

[John]

A wonderful spiritual memoir

Ilio tells the story of her spiritual pilgrimage through various engagements with science and Catholic monastic traditions and theology. She writes more theologically in the final chapters, and I missed the personal stories that shaped the first half of her journey.

[Terrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing

Like the stars in the sky Ilia draws the reader into her constellation. Like Moses kneeling before the fire in the bush we too find the fire of love beckoning us to love.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sr. Ilia writes a loving, fascinating, and encouraging account of her Catholic journey. She does not hide the mistakes, she embraces the successes, and weaves them all together with her own view on theology, the church, and the world to tell her story.

[Sheila Pritchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and wonderful mix of science, evolutionary theology and honest memoir. The last chapter on love is one I’ll copy and keep to read often. I have been to one seminar Ilia spoke at here in NZ and i have a couple more of her books. This time I was also privileged to meet the person.

[Jerry Catt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshing and Imaginative

Refreshing for her honesty and determined search for herself and God within. Vital to the ongoing discovery of love and wisdom an engaged imagination at every stop and turn in her journey! Hope was my takeaway.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic! It is deeply academic but mind stirring and revolutionary! Has changed my view of our evolutionary history and it's implications to our being in the world and our growth into the fullness of our being.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

[WALLY SAUNDERS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ilia Falls in Love

An astonishing heart- and mind-expanding love story: how a brilliant woman, a neuroscientist, comes to discover Love—her name for God—at the heart of science, at its junctures with religion. Read and let Ilia’s tale of personal adventure amaze you as it invites you to join her relentless quest into the heart of Reality.