The Marriage of All and Nothing: Selected Writings of Barbara Dent

Edited by Mary Freiburger. The author’s intensely personal, experiential style in this book puts flesh and blood on the concept of “the dark night.” Barbara Dent —a New Zealand mother, writer, poustinik, and Carmelite secular order member—goes beyond merely generic expositions of this key concept of Carmelite spirituality to craft her own vivid witness, one that speaks in a contemporary voice. 


As Dent identifies the major events of her adult life in biographical pieces, both prose and poetry, she reveals how adept a guide she is to managing the darkness of physical suffering and spiritual progress. The reader will appreciate the attention she pays to the resurrection as an integral part of spiritual development, an element too often missing in discussions of the spiritual journey and process.


Sequel to My Only Friend Is Darkness, this new offering of Barbara Dent’s writings brings together articles published elsewhere and forty-one previously unpublished poems.