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.