The Voice in the Stone

The Voice in the Stone is about Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), a Dominican Priest who preached and taught in Germany and France. Often regarded as a mystic, scholars, theologians, and devotees familiar with his work see him as one of the most brilliant and important of all Christian teachers. Mesiter Eckhart was famous in his own lifetime as a preacher and spiritual leader who gave his sermons in the common dialect. He was popular with the Beguines, a religious organization of primarily widowed women. One of his highest priorities was to teach the ignorant and uneducated so that they could learn the art of living and dying. In this pursuit he aroused considerable enmity from the clergy of the day to whom Latin was the only appropriate language for giving sermons and who saw no reason for trying to lift the peasants out of their rut of poverty. In the year 1326 Meister Eckhart was charged with heresy by the Archbishop of Cologne, Heinrich von Virneburg, for leading the common people astray. He died during his trial. A year later, Pope John XXII condemned several of his writings as heretical and they were removed from the church canon. The Meister was not alive to protest and his writings and good name were disgraced. Seven hundred years later, the church has finally agreed with their critics that Meister Eckhart was a good and orthodox theologian, though it still has not lifted the ban on his work. Because so few personal facts about Meister Eckhart have survived, the author tells his story through his interactions with different characters as they engage in a series of adventures and brushes with danger in a society obsessed with the fear of heresy. The author uses Meister Eckhart's own writings for much of his spoken dialogue. The novel includes a short factual biography of Meister Eckhart's life.