How do we become better people? Initiatives such as New Year's resolutions, vision boards, thirty-day plans, and self-help books often fail to compel us to live differently. We settle for small goals--frugal spending, less yelling at the kids, more time at the gym--but we are called to something far greater. We are created to be holy.
Award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson explains that learning to hear the call of holiness requires cultivating a new imagination--one rooted in the act of reading. Learning to read with eyes attuned to the saints who populate great works of literature moves us toward holiness, where God opens up a way of living that extends far beyond what we can conjure for ourselves. Literature has the power to show us what a holy life looks like, and these depictions often scandalize even as they shape our imagination. As such, careful reading becomes a sort of countercultural spiritual discipline.
The book includes devotionals, prayers, wisdom from the saints, and more to help individuals and groups cultivate a saintly imagination.
240 pages.
Contents
Foreword by Lauren F. Winner
Introduction
1. Holy Foolishness
2. Communion of Saints
3. Creation Care as a Holy Calling
4. Liberating Prophets
5. Virgin, Bride, Mother
6. Contemplative and Active Life
7. Sharing in His Suffering
8. Ars Moriendi
Conclusion
Scandal of Holiness, The: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints is in the following collections: