{"product_id":"9780281080328","title":"My Sour-Sweet Days: George Herbert and the Journey of the Soul","description":"\u003cb\u003eMark Oakley reveals George Herbert as a fine companion with whom to examine the journey of the soul.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003eHis poems are 'heart-work and heaven-work', embracing love and closeness, anger and despair, reconciliation and hope.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThere is too an appealing and audacious playfulness about Herbert: he seems to take God on, knowing God will win, confident God will not abandon him.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis sense of relationship with God as primarily friendship is one of many intriguing and healing aspects we are invited to consider.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eGeorge Herbert is one of the great 17th century poet-priests. His poems embrace every shade of the spiritual life, from love and closeness, to anger and despair, to reconciliation and hope. And his work is always rich with audacious playfulness: he seems to take God on, knowing God will win, as if he's having an argument with a faithful friend he knows is not going to leave. In much of theology and spirituality, God is a critical spectator to human lives, but for Herbert, his sense of relationship with God is primarily of a friendship that can never be broken. These are some of the themes Mark Oakley explores in this outstanding book\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e'My Sour-Sweet Days contains forty well-chosen poems by George Herbert (widely considered the greatest devotional poet in the English language), each of which is followed by a short but profound reflection by Mark Oakley. The combination is excellent: richly expressive poems and accessible personal meditations. This book powerfully demonstrates how poetry can bring comfort, refreshment and renewed energy to our spiritual lives.'\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eProfessor Helen Wilcox, editor of the critically acclaimed edition of The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge UniversityPress, 2007)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e'It's extremely unusual to meet anyone who isn't a specialist who has such a subtle feeling for language as Mark Oakley does.'\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSir Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42640626548797,"sku":"9780281080328","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0603\/0838\/9949\/files\/9780281080328_p0.jpg?v=1771580494","url":"https:\/\/www.tatteredcover.mom\/products\/9780281080328","provider":"Tattered Cover","version":"1.0","type":"link"}