With The Best Spiritual Writing 2002, Parbola magazine editor Philip Zaleski continues to deliver an annual anthology worthy of the utmost praise. In his preface to this edition, Zaleski explains his criteria for inclusion in the series: First, the writing must come from careful cultivation and lived experience. Second, it should "bring forth truth, beauty, and goodness." Zaleski has also assembled numerous writings that accomplish yet another lofty feat. Regardless of the reader's spiritual orientation, this collection expands our vision of the divine. Wallis Wilde-Menozzi reminds us that God's voice can be heard in a cello solo. In his poem "Gospel," Philip Levine convinces us that spiritual comfort can be found in the west wind "soughing" through pines. We discover that God's workers can take the form of a football coach (in Gary Smith's "Higher Education"), or even a fisherman's wife (in Susan Pollack's stunning essay, "The Wives of Gloucester").

Not surprisingly, this year's selections also speak to the events of September 11. In "Leap," Brian Doyle writes of two people joining hands as they jumped from one of the burning towers. "Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything we are capable of against horror and loss and death." And when Toni Morrison speaks directly to "The Dead of September 11" we realize that even the most eloquent among us sometimes feels that words are not enough. (Other contributors include Pattiann Rogers, Bill McKibben, Seamus Heaney, Barry Lopez, and Natalie Goldberg.) --Gail Hudson