"Every year, 'The Best Spiritual Writing' brings together the finest essays and poetry on the themes of faith, spirituality, and religion."--p.[4] of cover.

The thisness of what is /Diane Ackerman -- Dante's The Inferno, Canto I: A new translation / Mary Jo Bang -- Fire season / Rick Bass -- The God of the gaps / David Berlinski -- The judgment of memory / Joseph Bottum -- Is Google making us stupid? / Nicholas Carr -- The aging Maria / Judith Ortiz Cofer -- Searching / Billy Collins -- The Dalai Lama spends the night / Christi Cox -- Before the storm / Louise Glück -- The whisper of love / Seamus Heaney -- Vinegar and oil / Jane Hirshfield -- The kingdom of the eternal heaven / Paula Huston -- The return of the 'The snow leopard' / Pico Iyer -- Prince of ascetics : a short story / Charles Johnson -- Chosenness and its enemies / Jon D. Levenson -- Words on the wind / Philip Levine -- Our buried sentiments / Wilfred M. McClay -- Secularizations / Richard John Neuhaus -- The procession / Robert Pinksy -- Scriptorium: The Lindisfarne Gospels / Melissa Range -- The God of the desert / Richard Rodriguez -- I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least / Pattiann Rogers -- Contemptus mundi and the love of life / Amanda Shaw -- Ezra Pound in a spring storm / Floyd Skloot -- Why beards? / Meir Soloveichick -- The writer in winter / John Updike -- Ring the bells / Leon Wieseltier -- A measuring worm / Richard Wilbur -- The wanderer / Master Sheng Yen.