Is your life characterized more by long, leisurely walks---or by frantic sprints to get the kids to school, rush to work, beat out other cars in traffic so you can pick the kids up on time and grab dinner before your seven o'clock meeting?
Most of us are racing through life at dangerously high speeds, striving for a higher-paying job or a larger house, and volunteering for a hundred activities without ever stopping to notice what we do have or to reflect on who we are apart from all our doing. Our culture teaches that possessions equal success and busyness equals importance---and we have believed the lie. Though we search for contentment, we never find it. Even more, we begin to doubt its existence.
In The Contented Soul, sociologist Lisa Graham McMinn invites us to slow down be still, and learn the art of savoring life.
Our souls were not made for frantic, frenzied living. In the midst of our busy culture, we have forgotten---or perhaps never learned---how to savor moments and days. But McMinn calls us back to a significant, simpler way of life, a way characterized by intimate connection with our Creator, authentic relationships with others and a profound hope for the shalom that is to come. Along the way, the author also gives us examples of people who have chosen this way of life and found it genuinely satisfying, stirring hope that we, too, can choose and find lasting contentment.
So pull up a chair by the fire, or set out for a quiet stroll, binoculars in hand, and begin living life the way God intended: a life of freedom, beauty, connection and true satisfaction for your soul.
McMinn (sociology, Wheaton Coll., IL) reflects not so much on her academic
background as on a pervasive and subtle religiosity. Her touchstones are
figures as various as Henri Nouwen and Barbara Kingsolver, as well as the
Bible itself. To McMinn, the peace of a contented life comes in part from the
paradoxical recognition that "we will never be fully satisfied this side of
eternity." McMinn's calm, fluent, engaging prose persuasively reminds readers
that everything in human life retells the story of creation, fall, and
redemption; the difficulties of our lives are balanced by the assurance of
God's presence in the world. For most collections. Copyright 2006 Reed
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McMinn, chair of the sociology-anthropology department at Wheaton College in
Illinois, explores the nature and practice of contentment from a contemporary
Christian vantage point in this excellent guide to spiritual practice. She
turns her attention first to what constitutes contentment and then to some
ways we can cultivate it in our busy and sometimes unfulfilled lives. There
is much to ponder about slowing down in order to become more aware, practicing
fortitude, living with our physical limits and resisting "rugged
individualism" in favor of embracing and supporting strong community ties or
"communitarianism." McMinn pays special attention to the act of remembering,
"because the needs of the day demand attention and energy that drain our
capacity to remember." To engage readers with each theme, McMinn places
discussion and reflection questions at the end of each chapter. The unique
gift of this book is McMinn's background as a sociologist; she deepens many
popular spiritual practices by placing them in the context of the great web of
life and does so with the ease and beauty of a memoir. This book will
especially delight those interested in understanding how inner peace is
vitally connected to peace in the exterior world. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed
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