God for an Old Man

God for an Old Man blends elements of careful academic thought about God with elements of personal autobiography and memoir. The author is deeply influenced by modern process thought about God stemming from the thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne but he also describes his own life as a child adult and now a person entering his eighties. The central premise is that a person cannot write about a meaningful God without taking seriously the meaning conflict loss and joy in ones own life. Thomas M. Dicken is immersed in both literature and visual art. He explores the ways in which art and literature can evoke a sense of ultimacy even though we can never attain certain knowledge of the ultimate. Just as the psychiatrist Erik Erikson wrote about major stages in human lives Dicken writes with a sense of fulfillment about the insights and values of old age. Old age is the age of wisdom a time for offering younger people the insight that all the stages of life have been very much worth living. This is not a book of easy or dogmatic answers; it is a book of honest exploration. This book is the fruit of a lifetime of serious reflection on a God who is present but so profoundly vulnerable and hidden that he may or may not even be there. If you are wondering read this book and then wonder more deeply. --Rem B. Edwards Lindsay Young Professor of Philosophy Emeritus The University of Tennessee As he moves through layers of personal history scholarly references and contemplation Thomas Dicken lures the reader toward deeper insight and questions larger than the reader had thought to ask. --Janet Parsons Mackey Author of Things Get Rearranged In this thoughtful and engaging book Dicken takes us on a journey of his life. He reflects on his experiences of growing up in poverty in Kentucky during the 1940s love art literature facing death and God. The underlying theme that permeates and unites these diverse topics is his search for meaning in life. --Brooke Alan Trisel author of articles on meaning in life Dicken draws on the homeless cosmic Jesus process thought existential themes literature and art to find startling paradoxical and slant moments of meaning as approaching eighty he reviews his life. In intentionally fragmentary writing that he designates theological graffiti Dicken deftly and with exquisite irony explores that which lingers lures surrounds and grounds us in our deepest most inward being. The author lures us into finishing his profound fragments. --Mel Endy author of William Penn and Early Quakerism Following PhD work at Yale Thomas M. Dicken taught religious studies at Rocky Mountain College in Billings Montana. After a career with a focus on college age students he was minister of congregations in Montana Wisconsin and Indiana ministering to the whole spectrum of human life. He now lives an active life of retirement with his wife Nancy Dicken in Versailles Kentucky.