Shortly after completing the manuscript for this book last fall, Smedes fell from a ladder and died; he was 81. Professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Fuller Seminary and author of more than a dozen books, he is perhaps best known for his 1984 title Forgive and Forget, still in print with nearly a million copies sold. Here he turns from ethics to intensely personal reflection. Sparing neither himself nor those whose theology he finds inadequate, he connects the highlights of his life to his developing theological understanding and quest for personal faith. Smedes describes what turned out to be his last book as "neither a collection of essays about God nor a story of my life, but an account of my doubts and my pains, my faith and my hope as I walked with my elusive God down the winding trail from there to here." That trail, beginning on his grandfather's peat farm in the Netherlands, included poverty, bereavement and shame; but as he walked it, it was increasingly marked by love, self-acceptance and gratitude: "Personally I liked the last miles of the journey better than the first. But, since I could not have the ending without first having the beginning, I thank God for getting me going and bringing me home." Humbly recounted and gracefully written, this slim volume is a pleasure to read and a poignant valediction from a man who lived long and loved wisdom. (May)
