NEVER ALONE

The author of the best-selling Joshua series offers a practical guide to the challenges and pitfalls of the Christian's spiritual life. In his first nonfiction, Girzone shares experiences from his own life and draws on the wisdom of the centuries, writing with his usual humanity and insight. Each chapter outlines a further stage on the spiritual journey. Girzone tells how he first felt a desire for God in his childhood experience of aloneness: he believes that this desire is the basis of religion and something everyone has but that many, including some religious people, are not conscious of. The great means to awareness is prayer. Our author suggests that prayer has less to do with changing things than with ``just putting yourself in God's presence and sharing with Him what you are feeling or what you are suffering, and saying, I just want to be near you and open my heart to you.'' Girzone emphasizes the need to be free from attachment to things and even our own religious feelings (or lack of them) when we are praying. He warns that freedom can be unwelcome: we find ourselves becoming accountable for our choices, maybe changing our view of things or following where God may want to lead us. Girzone observes that religious people often try to manipulate others rather than respect their freedom, but he writes with great compassion and is able to teach without talking down to his reader. At times he betrays a certain animus against the authorities of the Church, and he fudges the issue of the role of the sacraments in Christian life (``Jesus did have little rituals...''). The non-Christian seeker will find much of value here. A refreshing alternative to the feel-good bromides on the personal religion market.