AIDS and the Sleeping Church: A Journal

Confronted by her own feelings of helplessness in the face of aging and ill health, Patricia Hoffman, a longtime activist and writer on social issues, felt drawn to spend time with AIDS patients. This is her personal journal, kept when she visited patients at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital at Marina del Ray in Los Angeles. These journal entries take us beyond the continuing stigma attached to AIDS patients, helping us to hear their words, to learn how some of them lived well in the face of death, and, most important, to experience the sacred value of who they were as individuals. In the process, Hoffman not only reveals profound spiritual insights for our own lives but also sensitively bridges the gap between the institutional church's rejection of those infected with AIDS and the need for simple, unassuming acts of love and compassion for those whom God has created.