Reviewed by: Wrestling with God: Finding Hope and Meaning in Our Daily Struggles to Be Human by Ronald Rolheiser Susan Forshey, PhD (bio) Wrestling with God: Finding Hope and Meaning in Our Daily Struggles to Be Human. By Ronald Rolheiser, OMI. New York: Image, 2018. 208 pp. $22.00. Ronald Rolheiser, a Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and spiritual guide, is known for tackling challenging themes such as loneliness, aging, and longing for God. With pastoral sensitivity and poetic beauty, he renders scriptural and theological insights from the Christian tradition in an inviting, conversational tone. This combination makes the reading of his books an experience in literary spiritual direction. In reflecting on his most recent book, Wrestling with God, I found approaching it as a spiritual director and seminary spiritual formation professor allowed me to follow his invitation, to be self-implicated by the text, and to be open to encountering God as a reader and fellow wrestler with God first, and then as a reviewer. Rolheiser dares to take on the often painful experiences of human doubt and struggle in light of a loving God, offering something of a map for the weary traveler. We are often taking turns in life, he suggests, away from God's love and towards what cannot satisfy, and the divine GPS continually recalculates toward love, grace, hope, and forgiveness. Rolheiser's text then invites the reader to find herself among seven of life's moments where wrestling in faith might occur: self-understanding, sexual intimacy, fear, following the Gospel justice mandate, doubt, God's nature, and faith lived out in culture. One of the most important keys to understanding how to read this book comes in the acknowledgements. Some sections were originally articles in Catholic publications. While a minor point, it helped me to approach the chapters not as building on each other, but an invitation to consider the overarching theme from multiple angles. While each chapter maintains the theme of wrestling with God, they could be read as stand alone reflections and—except for the first and final chapters—read in any order. Woven through-out the book are voices and conversation partners, historical and contemporary, with extended quotes from primary sources as material for reflection. [End Page 163] Rolheiser's pantheon of fellow seekers and guides include Mother Theresa, Ruth Burrows, Julian of Norwich, Nicholas Lash, Sue Monk Kid, Trevor Herriot, and Charles Taylor, to name a few. The variety in religious affiliation and life path offers readers sources for further study, though the addition of a bibliography or endnotes would be welcome. While many images flow in and out of the narrative, the Hebrew scripture story of Jacob's wrestling with God predominates. This story returns over and over as an anchor to Rolheiser's central message of encouragement: Jacob places stones in memory of his wrestling, a memorial and temple to his experience, and a promise that all moments and places of wrestling with God are sacred. Humanity wrestling with the Divine is holy ground, everywhere and every time. The only weakness of this book is not with its content, but the choice of which audience to address. Rolheiser clearly wants this book to reach the widest possible audience, and his sensitive exploration of the theme could find resonance in many peoples' experiences, across traditions. Rolheiser is at his best when he is writing to people within his community of faith—Roman Catholicism—and more widely, Christians who appreciate the riches of Christian mystics and theologians down through the ages. At points, when chapters critiqued aspects of cultural experiences and practices and attempted to speak to a broader religious experience beyond the (various) Christian traditions, the insights lost some of their power, and may lose persuasiveness for those who do not already share Rolheiser's faith tradition. Chapter two's reflection on human erotic energies exemplified this struggle with audience. Beginning with a strong critique of U.S. cultural attitudes toward sex and arguing for marriage as the only context for sexual intimacy, Rolheiser moves to a discussion on recovering chastity as a practice, and then ends with an archetypal exploration of the virgin goddess, Artemis. His intention is to...