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Editorial:
Doing what it says on the tin Comment:
Stat crux dum volvitur orbis p.s. Seeing red and feeling blue The
elusiveness of trust on the ethnic frontier Beliefs,
values and spirituality Citizenship Creating
Community Interview
with Jose & Marizete Lara: Laboratory for mission Transforming
Culture That's
not fair! Review:
A Heart to Listen Review:
How to Detox your Spiritual Life in 40 Days Review:
Praying in Exile |
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review: FIFTY DAYS AGO I began working through Peter Graystone’s book Detox your spiritual life in 40 days. ‘Choose 40 consecutive days and treat them as a preparation for a new turning on the path that you and God are treading side by side’ suggests Graystone in the introduction. I’m currently on Day 21! Yes, there is something wrong with my calculations. Let me explain. Rupert Higgins says of this book, ‘I have no doubt at all that at the end… you will feel your Christian life is in better health.’ Excited by this comment I delved into the book, determined to be disciplined and follow through the detox plan each day. Rather like detoxing your body for your physical well-being, this book follows a day-by-day detox strategy for detoxing your spiritual health. Things were great for the first few days which look at detoxing your body – examining your eating (check), your health (check), your rest and relaxation times (check), your sleep… ay, there’s the rub! Day 4: Get some sleep… Anyone who knows me will realise immediately that, as one of the world’s worst sleepers, following through on this particular part of the detox could pose a few problems. It did. I had also noticed that the following day’s detox topic was ‘Shake yourself awake’. How could I possibly do that until I’d got some decent sleep? So, I decided to stick at the ‘Get some sleep’ chapter until I was satisfactorily detoxed and I could move on. Three weeks later I realised that I might never get to the next chapter and, more importantly, I was never going to get my book review done in time unless I did! And so I realised that instead of being a cure-all leading to great spiritual health, this book was going to take the role of a highlighter pen which marked all those things in my life I’d need to take a long hard look at. As I’ve read on, and detoxed on, I’ve come to think that is also what Peter Graystone had in mind for this book. He certainly openly confesses to the parts of the detox that stump him and cause him to have to rethink. And through its 40 days, there are bound to be areas that will trip everyone up. It’s unlikely that anyone will manage to detox their body, standards, past, expectations, relationships and spiritual life (the book is divided into these six sections) without a few hiccups along the way. A day per topic was not long enough for me to really give time to each particular area covered – maybe I’m just slow. But I don’t think you are meant to use this book to concentrate on one issue a day and then set it aside with a ‘well, that’s that bit done!’ The book reminds you that there are areas of life that you maybe need to re-look at and perhaps return to again and again to detox. However, Peter Graystone doesn’t leave us stranded with a big magic marker through parts of our lives. There are suggestions for what to do to move forward and how to clean up each ‘toxic’ area. Don’t expect these suggestions to be easy though – this is a book that requires you to work if you’re to get the most out of it. It’s very easy to read, humorous, thoughtful, entertaining and interesting. However, to do it justice you need to put it down after each chapter (something I found difficult, due to its readability) and go away and do some hard graft. So, is my spiritual life in better health having read this book? Well, I could dodge that question by saying I haven’t quite finished yet and I’ll get back to you, but I can already say that Peter Graystone has provided me with a lot to think about, pray about, work with and act on – it has definitely been a helpful process and one that I hope has started the ball rolling and will keep me detoxing for a lifetime! But now, it’s time for me to get some sleep… CLAIRE MARTIN is Programme Co-ordinator at the Centre for Contemporary Christianity. |
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