Long Journey Home: A Guide to Your Search for the Meaning of Life

The search for the meaning of life--now talk about a topic for a book.Guinness knows what he's writing about. Not just his search for the meaning to life, but in his search his reading of philosophy, literature, art and biography and other seekers is included herein.This is profound and chock full of wonderful, deep statements of seekers.He carefully, philosophically goes through each step of seeking. His background of being born in Buddhist China to his time with Hinduism, then his education under classical secular humanism at Oxford well qualify him as such a guide.Just one salinet quote from this marvelous read is: "The secret of the search is not our 'great ascent' but 'the great descent'--of God toward us. Instead of the seeker finding love, love seeks out the seeker."Highly recommended for thoughtful seekers, to be given ones we know and for those of us whom God has already sought out and now on the way to serve Him eternally.

This book is a very fine distillation of wisdom applied to the "big questions" of life's meaning and purpose. Os Guinness takes the reader on a tour of how the world's major religions and some of its greatest thinkers have wrestled with questions of ultimate significance. How does death and human suffering affect our sense of hope and longing for purpose and meaning for our lives? What is the place of gratitude for life's goodness? What principles are worth living and dying for? There are no prepackaged answers to these questions, of course. But whether or not we are to believe there is an answer and what road we take to lead us there are crucial steps in the journey upon which we are all embarked. Whether we conscious of it or not, life is taking us somewhere. When we get to the end, will we look back on our journey with satisfaction and fulfillment or with a sense of shame and loss? For those who feel that an unexamined life is not worth living, this book is provides much to consider. Philosophy and Religion are not an intellectual game we can play with detachment and control over the outcome. The questions are bigger than we are and the Answer must be bigger still. The implications of the search for your life's meaning, if you follow it honestly enough, will end up handling you rather than you handling them. Are you ready? Then read on...

This is the best book I've read this year. Guinness very thoughtfully and intelligently walks through the challenges of coming to terms with the deepest issues of life. For any thoughtful person who wonders how faith (real faith in a real God, not belief in belief itself) can be embraced by rational, logically thinking 21st-century people, Guinness helps you work it through without being naive or insulting, and without doing the wrestling for you. Read it and be challenged to think, and find true hope.

Not since C.S. Lewis wrote Mere Christianity in 1943 has a book the potential to influence a generation of Christianity's cultured despisers as Dr. Os Guinness's new book "Long Journey Home." A guide to your seasrch for the Meaning of Life.Guinness is not only a prolific writer, (he has 21 titles to his name), he is a first rank Christian thinker, apologist and one of the world's ablest defenders of historic Christianity in a world increasingly shaped by post-moderniem, religious pluriformity and sexual diversity. His book divides into four sections. A Time for Questions, A Time for Answers, A Time for Evidence and a Time for Commitment.Guinness is the master of the anecdotal quote. In one chapter, "An examined life in an unexamined age" he manages, in just two pages to quote Huxley, Simone Weil, Ann Lamott, Annie Dillard, and concludes with this golden paragraph. "The fact is that many of the greatest thinkers, writers, artists, musicians, scientists, inventors, poets, and reformers throughout Western history ahve been people of profound and genuine faith--Augustine, Dante, Gutenberg, Pascal, Rembrandt, Newton, Bach, Handel, Wilberforce, Dostoevsky, and T.S. Eliot, to name a few--yet faith continues to be dismised by many of the educated and cultured as something only for the uneducated and uncultured."This book is must reading for any intelligent agnostic, for those who may have lost their faith, or for hard core atheists.I cannot say enough good things about it. Simply buy it.David W. VirtueVIRTUOSITYThe nation's largest evangelical and orthodox Episcopal/Anglican Online News Service read by more than 80,000 readers in 36 countries.

This is truly a beautiful book. The most astounding aspect of the book is that it does not matter what one's religious background may be, the principles on which the book is based, love and compassion, shine through. All one needs to have is a desire to understand life's purpose and meaning, and a will to make the most we possibly can out of our time here on Earth. The book points out the importance of love for humanity and for ourselves. How important and significant are we in the whole overall picture? The book addresses the philosophy of life and answers questions many of us may secretly have but are not sure where to turn to find the answers.Guiness has written a profoundly thought-provoking book in a style that is enjoyable to read. The writing style is light-hearted and does not bog us down in complicated theoretical analysis.