Union County Advocate 4/22/03

THE UNSPOKEN TRUTHS OF JESUS AND THE HOLY LAND

by Paula Markham

Most of us are raised on our elder's beliefs. Throughout our maturation those beliefs are reinforced by familial tradition, religious parameters, or perpetuated by superstition. Yet most of us have a vague understanding of their origin or purpose. At what point do we begin to question what has been accepted as truth and seek to discover why we believe?

Trailing Jesus (Gueem Books, 2002, ISBN: 0-9679296-2-8, $18.00) follows the path of one man's journey to unravel the mystery of faith lost in the fog of history. Author James Campion's tale of curiosity leads to Israel, where he walks the trail of the Christ on a spiritual hunt to find the real Jesus of Nazareth.

"The important question to ask when investigating someone of Jesus Christ's caliber in a historical sense is why did this nobody from an impoverished and oppressed society survive all this time?" says Campion. "How did his memory last two years, much less two thousand? And what are we missing when we aim to discover him?"

Filled with vivid descriptions of the landscapes that once framed a radical spiritual movement, while encountering the various 20th century pilgrims along its path, Trailing Jesus parallels Campion's travels with an interesting twist on the Jesus story. Confronted with the ghosts of Biblical lore, his search peels the layers of the gospels closer to their seductive center. Yet Trailing Jesus does not provide answers, instead it sheds light on the man, Jesus of Nazareth, who he was, what he believed, what he shared with his contemporaries and why his experience has crossed centuries.

Through a search for meaning in this life, Campion uncovers the endearing influence of a Nazarene artisan who dared to envision the impossible, a common thread to all spiritual mavericks of various times and cultures. Trailing Jesus is not the work of a scholar or a theologian, but the travelogue of an inquisitive soul that will inspire readers to follow their instinct and begin a search for their own truth and perhaps find a new world filled with the unexpected.