A Zest for Life: Contemplations & Meditations with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The philosopher, paleontologist, and priest Teilhard de Chardin had a vision that seeped well beyond the confines of his religion and role. How could he test these ideas when he was silenced his entire life by his church? Teilhard shared his deepest thoughts with the one person who could keep his ideas in confidence and meet his brilliance with her own, his cousin Marguerite Teilhard-Chambon. Marguerite was an associate professor, student of Henri Bergson, and life-long thinking partner with her cousin. Their letters, now published, are remarkable in their evolutionary vision of a human soul reaching for greater and greater divinity. A Zest for Life molds passages into mystical poems and illuminates them through inspirational essays by author and educator Amy Edelstein.

Amy Edelstein has created an extraordinary book that ignites a deep appreciation for Teilhard’s comprehensive vision of love. … This will bring joy and inspiration to so many seekers of Zest for Life.

~ Mary Evelyn Tucker, past Vice-President of the American Teilhard Association, co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

Amy writes with exquisite sensitivity to Teilhard’s mystical depth and poetic description of the human experience in the dynamic process of evolution. This is a book one can reflect on many times and never exhaust its content. 

~ Ilia Delio, OSF, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology, Villanova University

Teilhard’s themes are very relevant to the deep questions and dilemmas facing us and our world today and Edelstein’s reflections are simply profound.

~ Kathleen Duffy, SSJ, President, American Teilhard Association