Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life

Imagine my pure glee at finding this book on a $5 sale table at Wal-Mart! I bought all five copies there and gave them to my daughters and closest friends. This book is full of jewels and small treasures that make you stop, think and appreciate the everyday miracles in your life. Many of my favorite authors are excerpted or quoted in these pages. A must read for every book lover and those with a seeker's heart. A very comtemplative, heartfelt book that feeds my soul and spirit each time I pick it up. I highly recommend it to everyone looking for a book that can bring you joy and enlightenment on every page.

This book summarizes the accumulated wisdom of human kind. It deals with final and fundamental principles of the genetic urge to find meaning. It teaches us once again that the need for religion--connection, love,beauty, to be listened to--is a natural biological urge reflected in many sects and domination all searching for the same things, the things discussed iin this book.

This is an excellent thought provoking book. The authors spent a great deal of effort collecting meaningful spiritual anecdotes, stories, memories, etc. They then convey how important each of these are no matter what dogma or religion one follows. We can all draw closer to each other, as fellow beings upon this planet, by reading this book. It is a moving and heart-warming book.

If you aren't clear on the difference between religion and spirituality or think spirituality is weird, this book makes a clear and essential exposition of the differences. They use volumous resources to point out the basic values in life that count. As a therapist I use this book literally every day to help me meet the needs of my patients to understand themselves and where they are going with their lives and the importance of nourishing one's self, one's unique spirit. Spirituality applies to all aspects of life and the Brussart's start with the ABC's and go from there to explore the voice of hundreds of spiritual and religious persons to describe and enhance one's understanding of the basic values that apply to all of our lives if we intend to live up to any of our secret desires to be better persons.

Oprah said, "I keep Spiritual Literacy right on my bedside table. I love this book!" when she introduced the segment devoted to it on her show last year. Well, I beat her to it. I fell in love with the uncorrected advance proof which landed on my editor's desk because the Brussats are regular columnists for the magazine I work for, The Lutheran. It wonderfully teaches the reader how to see the spirituality already present in each of our daily lives--if only we know what to look for. That's given in a primer of spiritual literacy, from A for attention, B for beauty and C for connections straight through to X for the mystery, Y for yearning and Z for zeal. You don't have to retreat from the mundane to find spiritual truth. You have, rather, to plumb it. My copy of Spiritual Literacy still sits on my bookshelf headboard. This is a book to last a lifetime. And a marvelous bonus: Among the 600 some excerpts and passages you find authors that are old friends and are introduced to others destined to become new teachers.