Onderstaande tekst is van de hand van Timothy Radcliffe, algemeen overste van de Dominicanen. Het is het voorwoord bij de Engelse vertaling van Borgmans cahier die verscheen bij Continuum Books (Londen, New York).

This book is a highly attractive and stimulating exposition of Dominican Spirituality by Eric Borgman, a Dutch Lay Dominican. The central intuition of the book is that Dominican Spirituality is founded on the encounter of God in all of human experience. Dominic's mission, in the early thirteenth century, was born in opposition to Catharism, which maintained that God was remote from us and that there was a fundamental opposition between the divine and this material world. But for Dominic it is here, in our lives, with all their creativity and goodness, their mess and confusion, that God is to be found. Our mission as preachers pushes us 'to enter the unrest of the street and the inn, politics and journalism, welfare, teaching and science, in the belief that the holy, the traces of the Holy, are to be found there.' Even in the most difficult situations, when all is dark, God is waiting to be discovered. 'If Dominican spirituality has a core, then it could be said to be this insight into the unexpected and unheard of nearness of God'. This is the good news that the Order of Preachers was founded to preach and the source of the happiness of the preacher.

This belief that God is there in our lives waiting to be discovered is fundamental to his most attractive presentation of the Dominican tradition of prayer and contemplation. Contemplation is not the discovery of God through retreat from the world, though sometimes we need such moments. It is opening our eyes to discover God waiting for us in the most unpromising situations. The discipline of the contemplative life liberates us from the banal and trivial way of looking at things and at each other which is characteristic of the world of consumerism. We learn to see properly, to see in the dark, and above all to see compassionately, as God sees us. The contemplative must dare to be vulnerable to the pain and suffering of this world and  'to allow oneself to be touched by what happens to one and the world around, in the belief that in this way one comes upon the traces of the God of salvation and liberation'. 

This contemplative gaze is also the fruit of study and reflection, of acquiring a 'thinking heart' in the words of the Jewish writer Etty Hillesum, who died in Auschwitz in 1943. Borgman's understanding of Dominican spirituality is summed up in the superb image of a radio antenna, which broadcasts what it receives. Dominican spirituality, he maintains, is developing that receptivity to the presence of God which is source of all our preaching.

Given the fundamental stress that Borgman places on finding the traces of God in our contemporary lives, then it is not surprising that his interpretation of Dominican spirituality is strongly marked by the context in which he writes, that of the Dutch Church today. In Holland religious life, in the classic sense, is undergoing a greater crisis than anywhere else in the world. The most flourishing branch of the Order is the Lay Dominicans, which is enjoying a marvellous renaissance. This is reflected in his view that Dominican spirituality finds its pre-eminent expression in the life of lay people. In most parts of the world, all the branches of the Order - the friars, nuns and sisters - are blessed with vocations and vitality, which might lead one to stress other aspects of our spirituality. But it is also part of Dominican spirituality to delight in discovering that we do not always agree, as he disagrees with me in one chapter of this book. Argument in the pursuit of truth is part of our Dominican life. He writes that 'being a true Dominican consists first and foremost in becoming part of the company of seekers and questioners, so as in this way, with the help of human reason and building on the Christian tradition, to find something of an answer'.