Book description
Award-winning author and Benedictine oblate Paula Huston invites
readers to de-clutter their minds, hearts, relationships, and souls in a
book of daily Lenten practices woven from the gospels, the Desert
Fathers, and the author's own wealth of spiritual experience. "What
are you giving up for Lent this year?" It's the expected question
amongst Christian friends each spring. In Simplifying the Soul, Paula
Huston asks her readers a deeper, alternative sort of question:
"How will you rid your life of excess this Lent?" Huston
encourages readers to see Lent as a time to seek out silence and free
themselves of "stuff"; to de-clutter minds, hearts, and lives;
and to acknowledge the connections between what they pray about and what
they do. With honesty, vulnerability, and grace, Huston challenges
readers to move outward and act, showing them how everyday actions like
cleaning out a junk drawer, giving away something no longer used, or
spending fifteen minutes in silence can be surprisingly powerful ways of
experiencing a more meaningful Lent and a simpler life. Whether cutting
up a credit card, visiting someone at the hospital, or forgiving someone
with whom they are angry, readers experience, under Huston's gentle and
expert care, how such practices lead to a more authentic Christian
faith. "Too often thought of as simply a season of sacrifice,
Lent is revealed here as something far richer--a privileged time to
experience God in your everyday life, to open yourself to conversion,
and to savor God's transforming love."--Rev. James Martin, S. J.,
Author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything "This is the most
moving, most appealing, and, at the same time, most practical book I
have ever seen on Lenten practices."--Phyllis Tickle, Author of The
Great Emergence "Huston offers herself as a lively companion in a
Lenten practice stripped of cliches. Join her--it might be the simplest
and liveliest Lent you have ever kept."--Eugene Peterson, Author of
Pastor: A Memoir "When I read Huston's words I am galvanized and
motivated toward greater simplicity." --Luci Shaw, Author of Water
My Soul Paula Huston, a National Endowment for the Arts fellow, wrote
literary fiction for more than twenty years before shifting her focus to
spirituality. She taught writing and literature at Cal Poly, San Luis
Obispo and served as a core faculty member of the California State
University Consortium Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program
for many years before leaving academia to write full time. Her first
non-fiction project was titled Signatures of Grace, for which she served
as coeditor and contributor, and it earned a starred review from
Publishers Weekly. Her book The Holy Way was a Catholic Press
Association award-winner and Catholic Book Club major selection, earned
a starred review from Publishers Weekly and a bronze medal from ForeWord
Magazine for Book of the Year in Religion. Huston has also published By
Way of Grace and Forgiveness: Following Jesus into Radical Loving. A
Camaldolese Benedictine oblate, Huston is married, has four grown
children, and lives in central California.
