Holy Clues
The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
If God is the greatest mystery of them all, then why not, in pursuit of God, consult the greatest detective of them all? In this imaginative and surprisingly profound book, Stephen Kendrick reveals Sherlock Holmes as spiritual guide.
Drawing on the teachings of Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism--as well as a host of thinkers as varied as Albert Einstein, Gandhi, and Vincent van Gogh--Kendrick explores the stories of Sherlock Holmes and finds remarkably prescient religious insights. He shows us the link between careful observation of clues and the Buddhist concept of "Bare Attention." He illuminates the parallel between the great sleuth's pursuit of justice and God's actions on the scene of the first murder, when Cain slew Abel. And in the detective's open, engaged mind, Kendrick finds a model for uniting the principles of science with a sincere spiritual quest. The result is a book of inspiration for the modern, skeptical searcher--and an entertaining work that sheds new light on the methods of the world's greatest detective.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Arthur Conan Doyle's inimitable detective Sherlock Holmes once remarked to his erstwhile assistant, Dr. Watson, "you see, but you do not observe." Kendrick, the parish minister of the Universalist Church of West Hartford, Conn., contends that Holmes's remark functions much like a Zen koan, generating insights into the realm beyond reason. Kendrick engages in a close reading of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories to demonstrate that detective fiction erects a method of discovering truth that requires much of the same engagement that various religions require to discover spiritual insight. Holmes's inquisitiveness and his attention to the details of the case resemble, the author says, what Buddhism calls "bare attention." Following his analysis of the Holmesian "gospel," Kendrick comes to several conclusions: "Our vision is sound; we have to train our hearts and minds to notice what we see"; "Nothing is little; our lives are more significant than we can know; it is often through our pain and guilt that we encounter the hidden God"; "Religion is found not only in the spectacular but in the simple, the ordinary, the plain and everyday, and all this is aglow with the mystery of awe." Kendrick's lively readings of the Sherlock Holmes stories combine a deep sense of how attentiveness to the details of ordinary life can yield extraordinary insights into the life of the spirit.
