The Twin Towers Trilogy
A Sirituality for the Age of Terrorism
After the events of September 11, 2001, author Sal Umana imagines God coming to him for. From Sept. 11 to December 11, God comes for therapy once a week. In the course of treatment, God discovers that the old masculine tribal God of monotheism has been foisted on Her by the three great religions of the western world, while all spiritual people, both East and West, have always experienced Her as Love. In a final surprise session, God divulges who She really is-and who we are. “The Day My Ego Died” explores the continuation of God’s therapy sessions. While in treatment, God disavows any connection with the Allah of the terrorists, as well as the Christian crusade of the anti-terrorists. While She is at it, She also denies She is the God of Abraham. Is God having an identity crisis, or is this the product of post-traumatic stress disorder? Finally, in “Back to Earth, ” after successful treatment is administered to God, Sal realizes he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder himself and returns to God for therapy. In response to God’s explanation of the ego, Sal separates from his ego and adopts Zen Buddhism. After ten years of death, his ego returns with an important message for all. In this, the complete collection of “The Twin Towers Trilogy, ” author Sal Umana guides you through the complete spiritual odyssey, from beginning to the realization of the power of the ego.
Book One, The Day God Died, is about the Twin Towers becoming the grave of the personal God we grew up with.
How The Twin Towers have become the grave of the God of monotheism
Book Two, The Day My Ego Died, is about the death of our personal Ego and Life as Love, or living for the Other because he or she is me.
How The Twin Towers on 9/11/01 became the grave of my eoo
Book Three, Back To Earth.
Living and Dying Without Ego
Mark Wilkins
★★★★★ 5/5
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2012
I first met the author over 40 years ago. He remains a man of great passion and great faith. Blunt, direct and willing take a perspective different from those around him, he writes of that portion of his faith journey that has taken place since the fall of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11/01. The nature and complexity of his arguments are too broad for a simple review, but I found myself touched, challenged and angered by his encounters with God and his own Ego. Many will hear of the premise and figure that this laicized (but active) priest will assume that he has lost his faith (or his mind!). The more I read, the more I realized that Sal Umana is stripping away the assumptions and the hubris to order to let the reality and simplicity of God shine through. I had to walk away on a number of occasions because of what was written on the page. But then after thought and prayer I returned to be challenged by his message; just like I have been for 40 years. While there are editing and narrative points to quibble with, my thinking about religion and spirituality was once again taken to a much deeper dimension. This is not a book I will recommend to just anybody, but one I will recommend to people who want to take another, more bold, leap of faith.
Charles Wilkinson
★★★★★ 5/5
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2012
The author of Twin Towers Trilogy, Sal Umana, was near the epicenter of 9/11’s obscenity. Umana has written a personal, emotional yet somehow universal response describing the event’s shock and aftershocks that roiled through his soul – feelings and questions that will be familiar to the reader, even those farthest from the epicenter. In so doing, he confronts his basic beliefs in church, government and humanity and is viscerally impatient with his evolving world. His core question, it seems, is “If we are One and all creatures of God, inhabitants of the Kingdom, how can we do such evil to one other?”
An unapologetically married Catholic priest, Umana visions a world in which religions do not divide but rather unite; do not compete with or war against but embrace one another with the unconditional love of God. On a clearly personal level, Umana blames his own Ego for being blind to this truth and sees Ego and the abuse of power – on many fronts, at many levels – as a global disease with only one cure in sight. And that is love.
Only the rare reader will miss the author’s own love – and faith – in these pages.
Patrick G. Kenny
★★★★★ 5/5
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2012
This is not just another “God” book with conversations. dialogue or dictations claimed by an author to be with or from the “Almighty Himself”.
No, this author is up-front with the reader from the start. He tells us that his interactions with “God” are coming from his inquisitive mind and answered by his own struggling spirit ( which , in my opinion, is enlightened).
The fact that his mind and his spirit are tortured gives the author, Sal Umana, plenty to ponder. He steps out of the shadow of the smoking Twin Towers, brought down by terrorists, to ask the most relevant questions of all time. Who is God? Who am I? How can so much suffering be perpetrated in the name of God? What is truth? What is the purpose of Life? How should we think about death?
Are there answers? The author gives us some to think about. When he talks about The God That Never Was, the god that never existed, the god that we, along with our religious institutions made into our own image and likeness but with super-human powers, I believe he is on to something profound…When he moves on to The God That Always Was, the reader is stretched to search his/her own heart, own capacity for mysticism, for compassion and for justice.
If you know people who are struggling with the old paradigm of faith and spirituality and are ready to explore a new one, this is the perfect discussion book for such a group
Richard J. Penaskovic
★★★★★ 5/5
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2012
This book by Sal Umana defies easy categorization. Its scope is kaleideoscopic, involving such disciplines as religious studies, psychology, philosophy, and spirituality. Umana inhales such authors as Thomas Merton, Teilhard De Chardin, Leo Buscaglia, Paul Tillich and scores of others. When he exhales, it’s not only the literati who are blown away.
Umana distinguishes between religious and secular spirituality. It might be more helpful if spirituality were defined as “the living out of one’s philosophy of life, or, as the Germans might say, one’s Weltanschauung. This book deals ultimately with mysticism or how does one sheds one’s own mask or ego and merge with the Ultimate, whether one calls this nirvana, the Saguna Brahman,(Hinduism) Ens Simpliciter,(Scholasticism) Sein Ueberhaupt,(Heidegger) or the Infinite (John Duns Scotus).
Finally, this book reminds me of the film, The Razor’s Edge directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Tyrone Power, perhaps the best-looking actor of the 1930s and ’40s. Power plays the role of Larry Darrell who embarks on a journey to find inner, spiritual peace, after he experiences another soldier sacrifice his own life so he might live. This movie makes the point that our lives are always in process, that is, in via. We never achieve moksha or ultimate liberation. Rather, our lives are all unfinished symphonies.Umana’s book will have a particular appeal to those who think outside the box.
Richard Penaskovic, Auburn University