• Winner of a 2006 Chicago Book Clinic Award

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.