When Life Feels Empty: 7 Ancient Practices to Cultivate Meaning

Faith is an antidote to the overwhelming sense that modern life lacks “meaning and purpose,” according to this intermittently insightful debut from pastor Serrano. At the root of modern malaise, he writes, is a “materialism” that recognizes only what “can be observed in the physical world using physical senses, tools, and methods,” denying the faith that imbues life with meaning. To reclaim a purposeful life, readers can harness seven “ancient” practices, like singing with others in church, which orients believers to their “true north” and makes faith physical (“The reality of God is resonating in your very flesh and bones”), and giving thanks to God’s “transcendent truths” that lie beneath the “ever-changing circumstances of this fallen and fickle world.” The author is successful in reading complexity into such basic behaviors as scriptural study (he frames Bible stories as “supra-myths” that let believers see “our world today as clearly as possible”) and his scriptural analyses are robust, though his relentless idealizing of the past often feels myopic and selective. Still, Christians looking to reinvigorate their faith will find value here. (Nov.)