The Road of the Heart’s Desire: An Essay on the Cycles of Story and Song

The Road of the Heart’s Desire focuses on the emergence of the human race and the individual from an undifferentiated oneness and the return of the individual to the human community and to reflective and differentiated oneness with God. Dunne expresses this reunion through music and language. ＂Thinking of the human essence, we can discern in story and song a double emergence and separation, that of the human race and that of the individual,＂ he writes.

Dunne traces four cycles of story and song: the unity of all things, an emergence and separation of the human race, the emergence of the individual, and finally a reunion of humanity with ＂all in all.＂ The ＂road of the heart’s desire＂ is the path each person takes toward this reunion.

JOHN S. DUNNE is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of more than fifteen books including Reading the Gospel and The Mystic Road of Love, both published by the University of Notre Dame Press.