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Life to the Whole Being: The Spiritual Memoir of a Literature Professor
"Spiritual experiences are famously transformative. They sometimes inspire dramatic effects of conversion and healing, vision and new life direction. But even in their humbler forms such experiences expand our cognitive and emotional capacities, help cultivate virtues, and intensify our feelings of closeness to God, others, and things we deem ultimate. They make us feel more alive. And literature functions as a special medium for capturing the nuances of spiritual experiences; as an instrument of attention and imagination, literature helps us reflect more deeply on them and become more receptive to them. In Matthew Wickman’s case, literature has also helped him negotiate the complex relationship between spirituality, faith, and organized religion, including during seasons of faith crisis. He discusses all this by way of deeply personal experiences, theological reflection, and discussion of literary texts by Virginia Woolf, Denise Levertov, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christian Wiman, and more."
268 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 11, 2022
11 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Wickman
9 books1 followerMatthew Wickman is Professor of English at Brigham Young University. He is the author of The Ruins of Experience: Scotland's 'Romantick' Highlands and the Birth of the Modern Witness (2007), Literature After Euclid: The Geometric Imagination in the Long Scottish Enlightenment (2016), and many articles on Scottish literary and intellectual history. He most recently edited, with Caroline McCracken-Flescher, Walter Scott at 250: Looking Forward (2021).
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June 10, 2022
The subtitle of the book, The Spiritual Memoir of a Literature Professor, was all that I needed to know before buying the book, as I, too, was once a literature professor looking for a spiritual vocabulary—and a large part of me hopes that I will be so again someday. The author tells us in the introduction that the book grew from two highly interconnected seeds: a course that he taught at BYU on spirituality and literature and a devotional talk titled Thriving Spiritually that he gave, also at BYU, in December of 2020.
As one might expect from a book by a literature professor about spiritual thriving, both literature and religion play important roles. But the connection between these two things is slippery. Wickman rejects the popular enlightenment idea that poetry has replaced religion as the source of human spirituality, but he also rejects the common religious conceit that imaginative literature is a meager substitute for the scriptures and that fiction and poetry can only divert our attention from the revealed word of God.
For Wickman (and for me), religion and literature are responses to the same fundamental human problem: that our desire for meaning far outstrips the universe’s ability to provide it. Hence, we must thrust ourselves into the breach to fill the gaps in our understanding with something more than ordinary experience. Both religion and literature fall into the category of “something more than ordinary experience,” and both give us strategies to set the chaos of the external world into orderly frames that we can use to generate the narratives we need to turn the world’s often-random messiness into things like meaning and purpose.
Wickman’s literary palette is broad, and he explores the work of Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Levertov, Hardy, Woolf, Blake, Elliot, Wordsworth, Sartre—and many more—to crystalize the kinds of spiritual meaning that can come through literature. But this is not really a work of literary criticism, nor is it a study of ideas. “Ultimately,” he writes in the introduction, “this is a book less about ideas than experience—spiritual experience. . . . I focus on spiritual experience, rather than spirituality because I wish to emphasize the experiential aspect of a spiritual life” (29).
Wickman is true to his word. Life to the Whole Being is built around experiences that one might classify as spiritual: his mission to France, where he found very few people interested in the religious ideas he cherished, his marriage and the letters he has written to his wife, the deaths of his brother and his good friend, conversations he has had with LGBTQ friends who tried, but failed, to stay in the Church. These experiences, he suggests, are raw encounters with God—often as experienced through other human beings—and these experiences matter. They are the basis of a spiritual life. They are, one might say, the primary texts.
Both institutional religion, as represented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and imaginative literature, as represented in the text by the poems and novels that he discusses, are ultimately secondary to the spiritual experiences themselves. But they both play important roles. They structure the narratives that turn experience into meaning, they help us interpret the silences and gaps that come with all spiritual experiences, and they teach us the right questions to ask of the answers we receive.
Life to the Whole Being is a complex work in that it does a lot of things at once while navigating an often torturous path. But Matthew Wickman is an excellent guide to the landscape of faith. His prose is clear and moving, his experiences are relevant and illuminating, and his taste in literature is (from where I sit at least) impeccable. I loved this book, and I think you will too. It is not a book of easy answers; it does not need to be. It is a book that identifies some of the most important questions that we must ask as we journey towards spiritual understanding. Finding the answers to these questions is the work of a lifetime, and it is the journey, as much as any destination, that helps humans flourish.
As one might expect from a book by a literature professor about spiritual thriving, both literature and religion play important roles. But the connection between these two things is slippery. Wickman rejects the popular enlightenment idea that poetry has replaced religion as the source of human spirituality, but he also rejects the common religious conceit that imaginative literature is a meager substitute for the scriptures and that fiction and poetry can only divert our attention from the revealed word of God.
For Wickman (and for me), religion and literature are responses to the same fundamental human problem: that our desire for meaning far outstrips the universe’s ability to provide it. Hence, we must thrust ourselves into the breach to fill the gaps in our understanding with something more than ordinary experience. Both religion and literature fall into the category of “something more than ordinary experience,” and both give us strategies to set the chaos of the external world into orderly frames that we can use to generate the narratives we need to turn the world’s often-random messiness into things like meaning and purpose.
Wickman’s literary palette is broad, and he explores the work of Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Levertov, Hardy, Woolf, Blake, Elliot, Wordsworth, Sartre—and many more—to crystalize the kinds of spiritual meaning that can come through literature. But this is not really a work of literary criticism, nor is it a study of ideas. “Ultimately,” he writes in the introduction, “this is a book less about ideas than experience—spiritual experience. . . . I focus on spiritual experience, rather than spirituality because I wish to emphasize the experiential aspect of a spiritual life” (29).
Wickman is true to his word. Life to the Whole Being is built around experiences that one might classify as spiritual: his mission to France, where he found very few people interested in the religious ideas he cherished, his marriage and the letters he has written to his wife, the deaths of his brother and his good friend, conversations he has had with LGBTQ friends who tried, but failed, to stay in the Church. These experiences, he suggests, are raw encounters with God—often as experienced through other human beings—and these experiences matter. They are the basis of a spiritual life. They are, one might say, the primary texts.
Both institutional religion, as represented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and imaginative literature, as represented in the text by the poems and novels that he discusses, are ultimately secondary to the spiritual experiences themselves. But they both play important roles. They structure the narratives that turn experience into meaning, they help us interpret the silences and gaps that come with all spiritual experiences, and they teach us the right questions to ask of the answers we receive.
Life to the Whole Being is a complex work in that it does a lot of things at once while navigating an often torturous path. But Matthew Wickman is an excellent guide to the landscape of faith. His prose is clear and moving, his experiences are relevant and illuminating, and his taste in literature is (from where I sit at least) impeccable. I loved this book, and I think you will too. It is not a book of easy answers; it does not need to be. It is a book that identifies some of the most important questions that we must ask as we journey towards spiritual understanding. Finding the answers to these questions is the work of a lifetime, and it is the journey, as much as any destination, that helps humans flourish.
June 21, 2022
Absolutely fantastic. Insightful readings of poetry and personal reflections and stories that illuminate many important paradoxes and truths of lived experience. I can't recommend it enough.
June 20, 2022
This book is not a memoir. A memoir is a like a series of home videos tinged with memory, with a bit of elaboration for entertainment. This book is more like an album of photographs from Wickman’s life, dissected into layers, with additional commentary and connections from poems. I fully expected to be drenched in personal experience and got a really good teacup of it.
Maybe a little explanation is in order.
I met Professor Wickman in 2011 when I took his graduate seminar on literary theory. “You can look at him and tell that he’s a literature professor,” is how my friend describes him today, and there were rumors that he was a model in his youth and that his dad was a GA. We called him the silver fox. Combined with his penchant for unexpected arguments, he was vibe goals. I had just gotten married and wasn’t the most focused on my studies, but I really wanted to like literary philosophy. It was just a bit opaque. I squeaked out a B, and haven’t discussed Kant via his own writing since then. Professor Wickman was sooo excited to work in Scotland. That was about the extent we grad students knew about his personal life.
So yeah, my curiosity was piqued over ten years ago! But somehow reading Professor Wickman bear his soul, reading his love letters to his wife, and reading about his spiritual struggles did not really satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to know the stupid, gossipy details about if his acting career ever went anywhere (apparently not?), how he pined after his crush for years, and how he was “obnoxiously, implacably idiosyncratic” (55). I also wanted a more detailed explanation about why he returned to BYU after working in Scotland (his dream job?). Why did the realization that he couldn’t separate his love of God from the love of the Church (185) result in his return?
One of the cover quotes describes the book as a shift away from “destructive positivism” and is nourishing to “Latter-day Saint humanists.” These are some great signals for the philosophical bent of Wickman’s work here. This is no breezy memoir of baguettes and social missteps. It’s incredibly intense self-analysis from a philosophy/literature professor. There is a lot of wordiness that could be cut away and sentence structures that seemed difficult-to-read on purpose. Telling instead of showing. I had to look up “apophatic” again (was Heike’s Void not enough of a definition for me??). After I forgave Wickman for not having a style typical of a “creative writer,” I could relax and enjoy the many gems of wisdom he offers, especially since I identified with his experiences of spiritual doubt and fulfillment. And I found his optimism, faithfulness, and desire to cultivate the Holy Spirit in his life inspirational.
I have transcribed my favorite quotes (and some of my favorite ideas weren't able to be encapsulated here):
“To work at BYU means claiming the Church, inheriting the legacy of the pioneers, and continuing to build and to sing as one walks and walks and walks and walks. In a sense [...] it means becoming a missionary all over again. [...] I wanted, finally, to come off my mission once and for all, leave that labor to others. I wanted the spiritual rewards of learning, but I wanted to enjoy them anonymously.” (11)
“I also feel most authentic when I am a little unsettled in my religious beliefs and attitudes, when I seek and await further light and knowledge I know I do not yet possess.” (17)
“For me, spiritual experience thus usually entails acclimating myself to feelings of reassuring and expansive unrest.” (17)
“[...] the Spirit, I find, is a gentle contrarian: it resists the dogma of the status quo, refusing to let us rest in the complacency of narrow ideas and shallow understandings, stirring us to expand our minds and deepen our capacity for feeling and action, and causing us, therefore, to revise our relationship with our faith and reexamine our religious practices.” (28)
“[...] every laptop threatening a tweet of infamy” (39)
“If we cultivated the gift of the Holy Ghost, would our lives acquire more color, a different sound? If the Spirit were a more constant presence, would our pain feel different somehow? Would it carry a purpose, and a promise, that it otherwise seems to lack? And would our joy have an amplitude, a resonance that would cause it to linger, to echo? Wouldn’t the Spirit make things more alive to us and to them?” (48)
A spiritual life “reveals hard truths, disclosing more fully the reasons for my struggles and the nature of my limitations.” (49)
“‘The best books’ serve as bridges to spiritual lessons we might learn some other way.” (62)
“God was not dead for me, not ever. But certain conceptions I held of God needed to die.” (80)
“I had grown accustomed to approaching God seeking answers; now I needed to attend to the abiding mystery, the darkened corners, in the answers I received.” (81)
“When we encounter silence as an answer to prayer, we may be finally asking questions big enough or facing situations complex enough to merit from God the respect of a sigh, a nod of empathy, a renewed promise of grace.” (85)
“For me, God’s shadow was a sign of depth, his silence a form of speech.” (87)
“Truth, it seems, is about discerning God’s presence in unimaginable, seemingly random situations.” (116)
“The challenge [...] is not to “believe” in divine love but to perceive it.” (120)
“I would occasionally find myself overwhelmed by a sense of God’s presence in the most random times and places, like the morning when I sat in despondency and began a prayer with the words “Well, I’m still here” and felt overcome with divine love” (122)
“Is [poetry] the vehicle for an answer to prayer, or is it the answer itself–that is, what is given in place of the concrete answers we seek?” (148)
“[...] to some questions I asked in prayer, [...] I do not believe there is a single word or sentence God could have communicated that would have pacified me. [...] The answers I sought were, often unbeknownst to me, too intricate, composed of too many parts and too dependent on timing. They had to unfold piece by piece. In effect, they weren’t poems as much as novels, and I just had to keep reading. All the way to the end.” (152)
“[...] in many cases, scriptural passages are too larded with layers of cultural expectation [...] to capture properly the spiritual impressions that suffuse me.” (157)
“[...] the exercise of spiritual gifts implies a partnership with God, a kind of apprenticeship that brings us closer to God even as it transforms our lives.” (177)
On “nourishing an aesthetic relation” to his religion (a not-great way of distancing onesself):
“I could be in the Church but not of it–remain attached to it without investing too much credence or hope in it. When it was good, I could appreciate it, and when it was bad, it would give me something to talk about, like I would a novel, a poem, a film, a painting. I could analyze what was “problematic” about it; I could speculate on things that would make it better. Religion could become, for me, an object of critical engagement.” (181)
"That aesthetic relation to my faith, that reflective wedge I had inserted between my beliefs and the Church's truth claims, was exposed as a mere shadow of reality." (185)
“But religion is not truly itself until we ask it to do the impossible–until, fasting, praying, and serving, we petition it to help bring us, mere mortals, into the presence of what is most sacred. To know we ask for the impossible [...] but to ask for it anyway, [...] to believe and even know that our religious devotion to God will be met by his devotion to us: that is faith.” (198)
Maybe a little explanation is in order.
I met Professor Wickman in 2011 when I took his graduate seminar on literary theory. “You can look at him and tell that he’s a literature professor,” is how my friend describes him today, and there were rumors that he was a model in his youth and that his dad was a GA. We called him the silver fox. Combined with his penchant for unexpected arguments, he was vibe goals. I had just gotten married and wasn’t the most focused on my studies, but I really wanted to like literary philosophy. It was just a bit opaque. I squeaked out a B, and haven’t discussed Kant via his own writing since then. Professor Wickman was sooo excited to work in Scotland. That was about the extent we grad students knew about his personal life.
So yeah, my curiosity was piqued over ten years ago! But somehow reading Professor Wickman bear his soul, reading his love letters to his wife, and reading about his spiritual struggles did not really satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to know the stupid, gossipy details about if his acting career ever went anywhere (apparently not?), how he pined after his crush for years, and how he was “obnoxiously, implacably idiosyncratic” (55). I also wanted a more detailed explanation about why he returned to BYU after working in Scotland (his dream job?). Why did the realization that he couldn’t separate his love of God from the love of the Church (185) result in his return?
One of the cover quotes describes the book as a shift away from “destructive positivism” and is nourishing to “Latter-day Saint humanists.” These are some great signals for the philosophical bent of Wickman’s work here. This is no breezy memoir of baguettes and social missteps. It’s incredibly intense self-analysis from a philosophy/literature professor. There is a lot of wordiness that could be cut away and sentence structures that seemed difficult-to-read on purpose. Telling instead of showing. I had to look up “apophatic” again (was Heike’s Void not enough of a definition for me??). After I forgave Wickman for not having a style typical of a “creative writer,” I could relax and enjoy the many gems of wisdom he offers, especially since I identified with his experiences of spiritual doubt and fulfillment. And I found his optimism, faithfulness, and desire to cultivate the Holy Spirit in his life inspirational.
I have transcribed my favorite quotes (and some of my favorite ideas weren't able to be encapsulated here):
“To work at BYU means claiming the Church, inheriting the legacy of the pioneers, and continuing to build and to sing as one walks and walks and walks and walks. In a sense [...] it means becoming a missionary all over again. [...] I wanted, finally, to come off my mission once and for all, leave that labor to others. I wanted the spiritual rewards of learning, but I wanted to enjoy them anonymously.” (11)
“I also feel most authentic when I am a little unsettled in my religious beliefs and attitudes, when I seek and await further light and knowledge I know I do not yet possess.” (17)
“For me, spiritual experience thus usually entails acclimating myself to feelings of reassuring and expansive unrest.” (17)
“[...] the Spirit, I find, is a gentle contrarian: it resists the dogma of the status quo, refusing to let us rest in the complacency of narrow ideas and shallow understandings, stirring us to expand our minds and deepen our capacity for feeling and action, and causing us, therefore, to revise our relationship with our faith and reexamine our religious practices.” (28)
“[...] every laptop threatening a tweet of infamy” (39)
“If we cultivated the gift of the Holy Ghost, would our lives acquire more color, a different sound? If the Spirit were a more constant presence, would our pain feel different somehow? Would it carry a purpose, and a promise, that it otherwise seems to lack? And would our joy have an amplitude, a resonance that would cause it to linger, to echo? Wouldn’t the Spirit make things more alive to us and to them?” (48)
A spiritual life “reveals hard truths, disclosing more fully the reasons for my struggles and the nature of my limitations.” (49)
“‘The best books’ serve as bridges to spiritual lessons we might learn some other way.” (62)
“God was not dead for me, not ever. But certain conceptions I held of God needed to die.” (80)
“I had grown accustomed to approaching God seeking answers; now I needed to attend to the abiding mystery, the darkened corners, in the answers I received.” (81)
“When we encounter silence as an answer to prayer, we may be finally asking questions big enough or facing situations complex enough to merit from God the respect of a sigh, a nod of empathy, a renewed promise of grace.” (85)
“For me, God’s shadow was a sign of depth, his silence a form of speech.” (87)
“Truth, it seems, is about discerning God’s presence in unimaginable, seemingly random situations.” (116)
“The challenge [...] is not to “believe” in divine love but to perceive it.” (120)
“I would occasionally find myself overwhelmed by a sense of God’s presence in the most random times and places, like the morning when I sat in despondency and began a prayer with the words “Well, I’m still here” and felt overcome with divine love” (122)
“Is [poetry] the vehicle for an answer to prayer, or is it the answer itself–that is, what is given in place of the concrete answers we seek?” (148)
“[...] to some questions I asked in prayer, [...] I do not believe there is a single word or sentence God could have communicated that would have pacified me. [...] The answers I sought were, often unbeknownst to me, too intricate, composed of too many parts and too dependent on timing. They had to unfold piece by piece. In effect, they weren’t poems as much as novels, and I just had to keep reading. All the way to the end.” (152)
“[...] in many cases, scriptural passages are too larded with layers of cultural expectation [...] to capture properly the spiritual impressions that suffuse me.” (157)
“[...] the exercise of spiritual gifts implies a partnership with God, a kind of apprenticeship that brings us closer to God even as it transforms our lives.” (177)
On “nourishing an aesthetic relation” to his religion (a not-great way of distancing onesself):
“I could be in the Church but not of it–remain attached to it without investing too much credence or hope in it. When it was good, I could appreciate it, and when it was bad, it would give me something to talk about, like I would a novel, a poem, a film, a painting. I could analyze what was “problematic” about it; I could speculate on things that would make it better. Religion could become, for me, an object of critical engagement.” (181)
"That aesthetic relation to my faith, that reflective wedge I had inserted between my beliefs and the Church's truth claims, was exposed as a mere shadow of reality." (185)
“But religion is not truly itself until we ask it to do the impossible–until, fasting, praying, and serving, we petition it to help bring us, mere mortals, into the presence of what is most sacred. To know we ask for the impossible [...] but to ask for it anyway, [...] to believe and even know that our religious devotion to God will be met by his devotion to us: that is faith.” (198)
August 31, 2022
A friend recommended this to me, and I was intrigued by the concept of tracing how to establish balance between an intellectual and a spiritual life. This definitely didn't read like a memoir, although it had a lot of beautiful memoir-ish moments. It read more as its own blend-- mostly it felt like a really approachable, smart academic book that just happened to be about a very personal topic that involves memoir. Lots to really chew on here. Definitely not a book to breeze through lightly but rather a book to stop and ponder about at multiple points.
I should note that I read the print version, but apparently the print version is tricky to track down. I borrowed my friend's copy.
I should note that I read the print version, but apparently the print version is tricky to track down. I borrowed my friend's copy.
August 16, 2025
Simply beautiful. Beautiful writing, beautiful insights, beautiful rawness and authenticity. Can't recommend this one enough!
November 28, 2022
Beautiful and unrelentingly honest treatment of the paradoxes and ambiguities of life and spirituality for a believer who finds meaning in literature and in the sometimes faith critical world of academia. A hopeful, but pragmatic, voice for the sustaining role of religious life for individuals and for a more respected and productive interface of the spiritual with the academic.
April 22, 2023
Matthew Wickman’s “Life to the Whole Being,” Can be best described in two words - life changing. It is a brilliant, intellectually enlarging, spiritually strengthening book for both religious folk and non-religious folk alike. Within it, he explores scripture, literature, personal experience, and the research of knowledge of others to deepen the reader's understanding of themselves, the world around them, and God. After reading it from the perspective of another member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I wished I could read it again as if I was a different person. I can imagine that those who read it from a different vantage point than I could gain some very valuable insights that I didn't.
Not only is it insightful and engaging, but it is also extremely well written! I was very entertained, and often found myself intrigued by something new around every corner; something you don’t often expect from a book like this. His writing was easy to follow, and he didn’t lose sight of his main ideas when lengthy exploration was needed on a topic. When sharing experiences or thoughts, he always mingles it with a scripture or piece of literature that relates, which lends to his credibility and masterful research. It was also, most importantly, exciting to read. The number one thing that can kill a book of this genre is boredom, and monotony, which Wickman stays miles ahead of.
He provides his readers with tools to live a more fulfilling, mindful, spiritually charged life, regardless of your religious affiliation. No matter your background or experience, ‘Life to the Whole Being’ has something to offer you. It is a must read for anyone looking for a greater sense of purpose in all aspects of their lives.
Not only is it insightful and engaging, but it is also extremely well written! I was very entertained, and often found myself intrigued by something new around every corner; something you don’t often expect from a book like this. His writing was easy to follow, and he didn’t lose sight of his main ideas when lengthy exploration was needed on a topic. When sharing experiences or thoughts, he always mingles it with a scripture or piece of literature that relates, which lends to his credibility and masterful research. It was also, most importantly, exciting to read. The number one thing that can kill a book of this genre is boredom, and monotony, which Wickman stays miles ahead of.
He provides his readers with tools to live a more fulfilling, mindful, spiritually charged life, regardless of your religious affiliation. No matter your background or experience, ‘Life to the Whole Being’ has something to offer you. It is a must read for anyone looking for a greater sense of purpose in all aspects of their lives.
September 20, 2022
A lovely, lyrical book by a literature professor who has spent a number of years studying spirituality. This is a personal book, not just a textbook about spiritual ideas. Wickman tries to demonstrate how literature and religion answer the human quest to find meaning. He talks about his own encounters with the divine, modeling for the reader how to experience the spiritual life (as opposed to just reading about it). I love the literary examples he chooses to illustrate principles. I know the author and he is truly brilliant. I was afraid the book would be so completely over my head that I wouldn't get much from it. I'm glad I was wrong. His writing flows over the page in a way that is both beautiful and so clear as to seem effortless (which almost always means it's not effortless). He doesn't give easy answers, or really any answers, to difficult and complex questions. He instead shows how he struggles with the unanswerable, giving this reader comfort and occasional glimpses of light and understanding.
October 2, 2022
I loved this book so much I couldn’t wait to read more, but the writing was so beautiful, thoughtful, and poetic that I wanted to slow down to ponder and savor it. It’s a memoir about the author’s faith and spirituality, but also a tribute to literature and poetry, and that combination (memoir + faith + books) fuses together some of my very favorite things. I like to collect and transcribe my favorite quotes from books so I can come back to them and share them with others. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I marked almost every page, and multiple quotes on many pages, and then circled and starred some entire pages because I wanted to underline it all. So, I will not even attempt to share my favorite quotes for this one. I will just say his writing is honest, vulnerable, thought-provoking, and ultimately enlightening and faith-inspiring. I am so glad I own this one (and hope to return to it again and again) and highly recommend it to anyone who honors spirituality and loves literature.
May 9, 2024
There were several running themes of the book, one of which was how literature can be and was a vehicle for Wickman’s spiritual experiences. He also showed through his personal experiences how even the small and subtle spiritual experiences can be transformative over a lifetime. I really related to his open way of discussing how he had questions about the church, but believes that as imperfect as the church is, it is still a relevant framework to receive the spiritual experiences he values.
November 15, 2022
Matt Wickman's prose is mesmerizing and touching; his ideas are clear and thought-provoking. Above all, he speaks to the "everyman" and "everywoman" who have struggled with belief and faith. He brings each of us into a private dialogue that, in the end, reaffirms the role of religion in each person's striving to reach out and understand God. A must read.
April 5, 2023
Spirituality and literature seems like an interesting combination but Matthew shows how for him literature has brought him closer to God. The story kind of jumps all over the place in his life but so many beautiful experiences and perspectives.
October 26, 2023
Exquisitely written, deeply personal--a brilliant discussion of faith in the midst of uncertainty and how we see God working in our lives all the time--even when we don't think He's there. Highly recommended!
January 9, 2024
The title drew me in. I highlighted many pages in this book - great stuff. The repeated descriptions of the author's various disillusions with the Church were a bit of a drag. I suppose they could be helpful for some.
November 21, 2022
Spectacularly beautiful.
December 17, 2022
Beautifully textured, fresh spiritual experiences that are convincing me God continues to be bigger and better than I expect. I dog-eared many, many pages, many of which I have already come back to!
May 26, 2023
The author exposes his vulnerabilities in such an impressive way as to inspire strength in facing one's own struggles.
April 8, 2025
I am so grateful to have Wickman as my professor!!
May 5, 2025
I really enjoyed both the honestly and hopefulness of this memoir.
December 12, 2022
While a few sections of this book felt a little over my head, most was relatable, both the personal experiences and the discussion of spiritual experiences. Wickman shares an authentic recounting of his spiritual life, including periods of faith crises as well as spiritual renewal, and makes the case for literature as an adept vehicle for addressing the spiritual.
May 22, 2024
4/5
A terrific book. I am currently taking a class from Doctor Wickman, although he prefers to go by Professor Wickman. His written voice is synonymous with his oration. It was fun reading and hearing him speak through this chapters.
I really enjoyed looking at spirituality from an academic lens. Wickman's prose guides you along each chapter with the gentle flow of a thick current. One that Hemingway would swim in after fishing and drinking wine. Wickman is poetic while maintaining informative inquiries and observations. This book definitely strengthened, maybe not my testimony, but in my understanding of God and Christ. It has enlarged my capacity to feel, listen, hear, and then to act, portray, and express my interactions with the divine. It has reaffirmed what I know to be true with stronger beams.
Wickman's intertwinement of the academic with the literary was also genius. This went along with a lot of Wickman's core concepts, but in using poetry to understand or explain God and the spiritual, we not only grow closer to God, but to ourselves, as well.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts:
"If spirituality is about our love for God, then spiritual experience is about God's love for us..."
"... the poet desires to be something more or other than a poet since simply being a poet is not adequate to the miracle needed to produce an inspired poem."
"... literature makes us more human. And it makes our humanity seem more divine."
"The point is not that we are incapable of communing with God but that God is so far beyond human understanding that to impute characteristics to God, to claim to know God and God's mysteries, is to project onto God our own (limited) paradigms, our own concepts and needs."
-Borges has similar statements as this. Would be interesting to tie the two together.
"I was anguished, and God was not. I mourned the prospect of lost futures for my children, and God did not."
"... spiritual experiences enhance our native capacities, making us more ourselves by seeming to make us more than ourselves."
"Redemption is both necessary and real."
[In reference to the poem "The Answer" by R.S. Thomas]: "In Thomas's poem, that enigmatic presence through absence, that fulsome vacuity--the empty tomb as the sign of Christ's resurrection--becomes the greatest of all possible answers to any conceivable question."
A terrific book. I am currently taking a class from Doctor Wickman, although he prefers to go by Professor Wickman. His written voice is synonymous with his oration. It was fun reading and hearing him speak through this chapters.
I really enjoyed looking at spirituality from an academic lens. Wickman's prose guides you along each chapter with the gentle flow of a thick current. One that Hemingway would swim in after fishing and drinking wine. Wickman is poetic while maintaining informative inquiries and observations. This book definitely strengthened, maybe not my testimony, but in my understanding of God and Christ. It has enlarged my capacity to feel, listen, hear, and then to act, portray, and express my interactions with the divine. It has reaffirmed what I know to be true with stronger beams.
Wickman's intertwinement of the academic with the literary was also genius. This went along with a lot of Wickman's core concepts, but in using poetry to understand or explain God and the spiritual, we not only grow closer to God, but to ourselves, as well.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts:
"If spirituality is about our love for God, then spiritual experience is about God's love for us..."
"... the poet desires to be something more or other than a poet since simply being a poet is not adequate to the miracle needed to produce an inspired poem."
"... literature makes us more human. And it makes our humanity seem more divine."
"The point is not that we are incapable of communing with God but that God is so far beyond human understanding that to impute characteristics to God, to claim to know God and God's mysteries, is to project onto God our own (limited) paradigms, our own concepts and needs."
-Borges has similar statements as this. Would be interesting to tie the two together.
"I was anguished, and God was not. I mourned the prospect of lost futures for my children, and God did not."
"... spiritual experiences enhance our native capacities, making us more ourselves by seeming to make us more than ourselves."
"Redemption is both necessary and real."
[In reference to the poem "The Answer" by R.S. Thomas]: "In Thomas's poem, that enigmatic presence through absence, that fulsome vacuity--the empty tomb as the sign of Christ's resurrection--becomes the greatest of all possible answers to any conceivable question."
December 22, 2023
I heard of this book when the author made an appearance on an episode of the Maxwell Institute Podcast, so if you are unsure if you would be interested in this book, I would suggest starting there. I loved this book. From a technical standpoint, Wickman writes with the type of prose one would expect from a Literary Professor, which elevated the book from a simple recounting of experiences to something more grand. Also, the use of literature and poetry, and a Professor's help in the interpretation of the same, was very enjoyable.
More to the point, I imagine, was the religious and spirituality aspect of the book. I found Wickman's life experience with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to largely mirror mine, though we have different backgrounds and different careers. Despite our differences, I found many similarities in our experience with the Church and the Gospel - from our European missions, being an academic worshiping among a group who often have an distrust of academia/science, to being a devout among a professional group that largely scoffs at faith - there were many similarities. And while reading this book I was inspired, counseled, and reminded of many truths I knew but that, maybe, have dimmed with time. I am blessed for having read this and would encourage any one to do so, but especially those of faith.
More to the point, I imagine, was the religious and spirituality aspect of the book. I found Wickman's life experience with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to largely mirror mine, though we have different backgrounds and different careers. Despite our differences, I found many similarities in our experience with the Church and the Gospel - from our European missions, being an academic worshiping among a group who often have an distrust of academia/science, to being a devout among a professional group that largely scoffs at faith - there were many similarities. And while reading this book I was inspired, counseled, and reminded of many truths I knew but that, maybe, have dimmed with time. I am blessed for having read this and would encourage any one to do so, but especially those of faith.
July 22, 2022
I loved this book and wavered for a while between four and five stars. I try to reserve five-star ratings for books that feel not only powerful but uniquely so, those that affect me in a way no other book has. This makes my ratings subjective, but I also hope they reflect some objective quality of thought expressed in an enjoyable-to-read way. “Life to the Whole Being,” I ultimately decided, deserves the five-star label; it was a surprisingly enjoyable read—gripping, even—and contained several significant new ideas (new, at least, for me).
These ideas include the following:
- The relationship between religion and spiritual experience: religion gives spiritual experience a meaningful doctrinal foundation and a structure encouraging its consistent practice, and spiritual experience gives religion life.
- The relationship between literature and spiritual experience: they are born from almost the same impulse, and literature is the only way we can (sort of) communicate spiritual experience.
- Silence as a means of divine communication
There are many more excellent trains of thought in this book, but these three in particular are woven throughout. It is a beautiful work.
These ideas include the following:
- The relationship between religion and spiritual experience: religion gives spiritual experience a meaningful doctrinal foundation and a structure encouraging its consistent practice, and spiritual experience gives religion life.
- The relationship between literature and spiritual experience: they are born from almost the same impulse, and literature is the only way we can (sort of) communicate spiritual experience.
- Silence as a means of divine communication
There are many more excellent trains of thought in this book, but these three in particular are woven throughout. It is a beautiful work.
February 9, 2024
I am left completely moved by this memoir, with a fresh appreciation for both literature and spirituality, as well as the ways they beautifully and necessarily inspire each other.
Full review coming in WAYFARE MAGAZINE soon.
Full review coming in WAYFARE MAGAZINE soon.
September 7, 2025
One of my favorite religious books ever. Really beautiful insights on ways to reflect on and remember the Spirit working in our lives. I rarely re-read books but this one I have.
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