Soul in the City

Soul and the City is a book by Marcy Heidisk which subtitles itself "Finding God in the Noise and Frenzy of Life." This is certainly a worthwhile and much needed topic when the spiritual life is often drowned out by just pure busyness and activity after activity.  This book though is both hit and miss in giving answers to this topic.  Where the book succeeds is when the author describes the struggles of people she knows to life a spiritual life.  Especially good were some of the stories from when she worked in a homeless shelter of the people within and their efforts at living a life of prayer.  This book comes under the category of "Christian Living" and so is rather generic when it comes to a specific charism of spirituality.  The author seems widely read among Catholic and Protestant sources and much of the advice given is solid such as working to see Christ in others among the busy streets.  Of seeking quiet and simplicity while also giving of yourself to others.  Not exactly surprising themes and mostly an application of the Gospel in the specific context of city life. 

I found most of the advice as being too generic such as visiting museums and cultural events to nourish the spiritual life.  Certainly seeking beauty through the arts is quite necessary, but she offers no caveats as to the type of art we will often run into in modern life.   My main complaint with the book is that it is rather too broad.  While it does not fall into the "I am spiritual, but not religious" trap, inadvertently it comes close to it when it speak of spirituality.  While certainly the book is Christian spirituality to me at times spirituality comes before Christ.  The chapters of the book are also rather inverted in that worship Of God and gratitude for his grace are the last two chapters in the book. Though there are references to the Gospels throughout and the Psalms.

Despite these deficiencies I would have seen this book as somewhat worthwhile for beginners in a life of pray but for the references to centering prayer.  The author herself recommends it and quotes Fr. Pennington throughout the book.  Maybe this explains the shallow spirituality of the book.  Centering prayer can turn into self-centering prayer and their are plenty of horror stories of disaster to someone's prayer life who have entered into this type of prayer as it can become a form of self-hypnosis.  Not that everybody will have problems such as these since some just practice centering prayer as a form of quieting yourself to enter into prayer.  I also wondered throughout the book exactly whether the author was Catholic. Lutheran, or some other form of Protestanti.  She seem to go to Mass and other services on a regular basis and this adds to generic spirituality of the book.

Also lacking was any concept of growing in holiness, of overcoming faults, and personal sin which is a major fault for any book addressing this topic.  A growing love of God and neighbor will only highlight our own faults and advancement in the life of prayer requires more than the simple advice this book gives.  I also found that this book needed some editing since I sometimes found mistakes in it such as using "Jesus's" for the possessive.  In fact one mistake in the book had me laughing.

"Holy people aren't necessarily found among the canonized saints."

I don't want to pile on in this review, but the book left me unsatisfied.  Here was a great premise of Soul in the City as a play on Sex in the City and giving what could have been a popular treatment of the spiritual life in Christ amongst the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  A promise made but not fulfilled.