What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

In this compassionate guide, Anglican priest Warren (Liturgy of the Ordinary) shares practices to deepen one’s faith during periods of “spiritual desolation.” Warren recounts feeling trapped in a state of “silent crisis” as her faith and satisfaction in her work waned. She sought answers in the writings of monks and early Christian converts whose “spiritually difficult and ascetic lives” occasioned many “intense seasons of languishing, weariness, and a sense of God’s distance,” coming away from these texts with a “slow, quiet,” but consistent approach toward “persevering in the long apprenticeship to Jesus.” This can involve consistently practicing rituals—like prayer, fasting, and community worship—that act as spiritual anchors; trading “panic and perfectionism” for grace toward oneself; and generally leaving room for God’s mysteries. The author excels at energizing familiar wisdom (“If salvation is to meet us at all, it must meet us in the slog”) as she effectively reassures believers that the disorientation of “spiritual drought” is as old as faith itself. Despairing Christians will be rejuvenated. (May)