Doubt is as natural an experience as faith and what theologian Paul Tillich called an indispensable component of authentic faith. In this book an extraordinary range of writers talks about the moment-often devastating-when they turned to God only to find neither God's presence nor consolation. Where once silence was filled with peace, now that silence signals only emptiness. In a Dark Wood features a diverse group of voices describing unlikely and often moving journeys toward or away from faith-Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; laypeople and religious professionals; activists, poets, politicians, and ordinary people. In addition, dozens of readings, poems, and prayers reflect on belief and doubt, on the loss of faith and its rediscovery, from the Psalmists, medieval saints, and such luminaries as W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot, James Baldwin and Joseph Heller, Maya Angelou and Isabel Allende, Henri Nouwen and Walter Brueggemann, Nelson Mandela and Daniel Berrigan.