| A note on a double helix of trilogies...
January 17, 2005
The previous six books stand on their own, but they are also parts of two trilogies called “The Art of Living” and “The Science of Life” which interact together.
Each of the three volumes in the trilogies describes the development in qualities of soul called hope, faith, and love. The first volume in each trilogy focuses on the inner and outer growth of hope; the second in each, on faith; and the third in each, on love.
The twin trilogies are distinct in as much as “The Science of Life” deals with the three-step movement to integrity in life by means of an upward and inward journey to knowledge of the integrating good that alone makes a life of integrity possible while “The Art of Living” deals with how actually to live in the world with integrity and meaning.
The first volume of each trilogy represents how human, not individual, memory stimulates and guides hope’s development first upward through group study under rules where the group represents human or universal wisdom and then downward through insightful sayings of inherited wisdom guiding life.
The second volume in each trilogy represents the subsequent movement of faith. Similarly, this involves first an upward direction by losing illusory beliefs in the realm of visible goods and attending to the timeless or eternal good and then a downward direction in the practical world.
Finally, the third volumes represent the movement in love upward to the ultimately indefinable Good and downward to living divine love in the world.
While each volume can be read independently, there are two additional reading strategies. First, the reader might follow the movement of understanding from one book to the next in the “Science” trilogy and then the movement of life in the world in the “Art” trilogy. Alternatively, the reader might even better follow the path of hope upward in the first book of “Science” and downward in the first book of “Art,” then the path of faith upward and downward in the second books of each trilogy, and finally the path of love upward and downward in the third books.
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