One Good Book: Touching the Holy - by Pastor Brad
One writer I have appreciated for a couple of decades now is Robert Wicks. He's written a number of books on the integration of psychology and spirituality, all of which include genereous helpings of insights and stories from his own life and his reading. He writes for the general reader, so the books are very accessible. One that I've gone back to a few times is....
Touching the Holy: Ordinariness, Self-Esteem, and Friendship. Divided into the three parts indicated in the subtitle, the back jacket of my old copy (the cover has been redone recently) reads, "Drawing on the experience of contemporary Christians and the wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers, [Wicks] suggests that the simplicity and openness of truly ordinary people are a meeting place with God."
Just a sample morsal from the section on self-esteem. Wicks quotes another writer I remember from years ago, Louis Evely. "As Louis Evely noted back in the 1060s: 'Since people don't have the courage to mature unless someone has faith in them, we have to reach those we meet at the level where they stopped developing, where they were given up on as hopeless, and so withdrew into themselves and began to secrete a protective shell because they thought no one cared. They have to feel they're loved very deeply and very boldly before they dare appear humble, affectionate, sincere, and vulnerable.'" (p.71)
This is an unusually good book for a general readership interesting in growing spiritually and psychologically by drawing upon some of the deep wisdom of the Christian tradition which is illuminated by contemporary examples.