I first met Father James Martin, S.J., about 15 years ago. His reputation had preceded him. I had read some of his writings and I had heard about some talks that he gave. Not long after I met Father Martin I asked him to write a comment for the cover of a book I had written. He did, and after that, a friendship developed.

I teach several philosophy courses at St. John’s University in which I spend a number of classes on the topic of truth. At the start of my first presentation, I stress that what we will read and discuss about truth is one of the most important sections of the course. I believe that what I teach about the meaning of truth is true and I challenge the students to prove me wrong.

One of the seven broken signposts that A.T. Wright studies in his new book Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World (New York: HarperOne, 2020, $27.99) is spirituality. It is one of the seven signposts that Wright doesn’t think are working in the contemporary world and which he thinks can be healed by embracing the vision that St. John presents in his gospel.

“The word love, whatever its finer shade of meanings, is all about relationships. It is about being drawn out of myself toward something or someone else, in whatever way and with whatever short- or long-term aims or effects. It is about discovering that ‘I’ become more ‘myself’ when I am in relationship-even if that relationship might be, for a time at least, with a mountain, a horse, a sunset, a child, a sweetheart, a house, a hospital patient, colleague or a neighbor.