Opening the Invitation

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.

The Call is the final volume in a trilogy (The Invitation and The Dance
preceded it). The book begins with a two-page poem titled “The
Call.” Then, in a series of 12 chapters, Oriah provides commentary and
reflections on each section of the poem, concluding each chapter with
directions for meditating on that section. Opening the Invitation begins
with her poem, “The Invitation,” which has been available on the
Internet for several years. The rest of the book contains a section on
the circumstances in which she wrote the poem, and a section on how the
poem ended up on the Internet and how it was received by people.

Despite the author’s protestations, both books reflect a New Age
thinking in two ways. First, she provides a mix-and-match approach to
spiritual practice. Her sources range from her Sunday-school lessons as
a child to Muslim mystics, from medieval Christian spiritual teachers to
her favoured First Nations shamanism. Her teaching and guidance focus on
the self, as exemplified by “The Invitation” repeating “I want”
over and over. Second, her writing is predominantly about herself. One
learns more about her life than one really wants. The classical
religions’ focus on “the other” and the time-honoured tradition of
religious teachers (e.g., Moses, St. Paul, or Muhammad) pointing to the
divine rather than to themselves have been abandoned. What we have, in
two very different books, is narcissism exemplified and encouraged.