When Words Fail: God and the World of Beauty

Is there a sharp divide between the 'sacred' and the `secular'? This book explores how it is possible for human beings to know God, and not just to know him in the more conventional and obvious ways of prayer and sacrament, scripture and theology. The author's primary aim is to point the way to a deeper knowledge and understanding of God through various other media, especially literature and music, art and architecture. `When words fail' -- it is then that signs and symbols, images and sounds, pictures and dreams, have to take over. The painter's eye and the musician's ear give them the insight to perceive things differently and through their work, can help us to experience a growing awareness of the underlying unity of art and religion and life itself. Here is an attempt to open windows of the mind and soul through aesthetic appreciation.