cover image Soul and the City: Finding God in the Noise and Frenzy of Life

Soul and the City: Finding God in the Noise and Frenzy of Life

Marcy Heidish. WaterBrook, $13.99 (221pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-7436-5

The city is a challenge for any spiritual life. The frenetic pace of activity—which is the motor that drives most of its inhabitants to live there—leaves little obvious time for the quiet a soul needs. Heidish, sometime novelist and here a spiritual memoirist-cum-theologian, sees the city not as an obstacle but a boon to life with God. Those moments most of us fume at waiting for a light to change, in a crowd cursing the red hand of the crosswalk? What a moment to pray—for those with whom one is suddenly in unplanned communion. Storefront churches, people in need and quiet corners of parks and gardens are all oases of grace, which we need to enter regularly in order to be fully ourselves. The book reads fluidly, especially for those at once drawn to and repulsed by cities. Heidish’s memories of growing up in Manhattan include a physician father ready to set out at a moment’s notice for a house call. He was too sophisticated for faith, until he wasn’t, growing frailer and more faithful. His story becomes a sort of icon for the spiritual maturity for which Heidish lovingly calls. (June 17)