Next to Godliness
Finding the Sacred in Housekeeping
224 pp, Price: $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-59473-214-0
Be they our kitchens after a meal or our communities after a crisis, we all face the times—and opportunities—when we must clean up. Through a beautiful, diverse and eclectic array of personal narratives, fiction, sacred texts and verse, this inspiring book offers new perspectives on the unique ways we can reach out for the Divine within the simple acts of washing the dishes, doing the laundry, making a home and more. Giving the process of cleaning house depth and resonance, these writings will speak to your heart and allow you to see beyond the task at hand and into a greater undertaking—to realize the sacred in all that we do.
“Thoughtful, surprising … inspires us to think differently about how we keep our domestic space…. Hard to resist.”
— Washington Post
“A cultural landmark exploring our changing attitudes about home.”
— Detroit Free Press
“An ecumenical potpourri of reflections…. Will amuse and edify, prompting [you] to reflect on the ways that the most mundane requirements of life are inseparably bound up with the transcendent.”
— Books & Culture
“An eclectic and ecumenical treasury of writings—ancient and modern, poetry and prose, secular and sacred…. Dissolves the boundaries between drudgery and dharma, celebrating the opportunities for transcendence that can be found in the everyday. Feng Shui for the heart, mind and soul.”
— Arthur Goldwag, author of 'Isms & 'Ologies: All the Movements,
Ideologies and Doctrines That Have Shaped Our World
“Slowly shakes loose our need to constantly distinguish small from large, mundane from sacred, interior from exterior…. Uncommonly joyful in the way it affirms the simplicity we sense directly in spiritual life, while at the same time including the mysteries and intensities of the immeasurable dwelling place.”
— Bonnie Myotai Treace, Hermitage Heart Zen