Holy Is the Day

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Holy Is the Day: Living in the Gift of the Present, by Carolyn Weber

A couple of years ago, I reviewed Weber's first book, Surprised By Oxford.  I enjoyed it quite a bit, so I was pleased to see that she has written a second book, this time about how her faith sustains her in difficulty, and finding joy and grace in the everyday.

She is not kidding around about her trials, either.  Weber starts off by telling about the birth of her twin sons; everything went just fine with the first baby, and then suddenly things were not fine at all and both mother and baby came close to death.  With an opening like that, I was pretty hooked, and continued on to read about the pressures of raising three tiny children while trying to get tenure as an English professor, a sudden move away from academia, and a completely unexpected high-risk pregnancy--and since evidently Weber finished the book before her pregnancy was over, there is no resolution to that story!  (I checked her blog to find out.)

Weber's personal experiences serve as a way for her to dig into questions about how we can cope with the inevitable difficulties of life.  In every chapter, she brings up new spiritual reflections, meditating on how scripture, literature, nature, and those around us teach us about grace.

I think many people--probably women in particular--would enjoy Holy Is the Day very much.  Weber is intelligent, and an insightful and poetic writer.  Once upon a time, Madeleine L'Engle used to write this sort of book, and Weber's writing reminds me of that, so if you like L'Engle, this would be a good choice for you.  I did feel that sometimes she got a little too consciously poetic, but readers who like poetry more than I do will probably be fine with it.






I received a free ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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