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According to Perry, there’s more to life than merely being human. The author begins by “pinching” us to wake up to a simple reality: the complex design of our bodies, pre-planned by God to help us achieve spiritual understanding. For example, just as we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide to sustain our physical being, we must ingest spiritual truths and cast off harmful untruths for the good of our souls. And just as our hearts are a “transfer center” for the body, so the soul is center for “thinking, feeling, and willing.” Our spiritual journey, like the physical one, begins by sensing, leading to ideas and thoughts and, eventually, to understanding, which Perry calls “the spiritual organ where divine truth is ultimately housed.” Once we have located that level of deep understanding, we will experience peace and healing.
Perry’s book is compelling, combining an intelligent thesis with a plethora of biblical quotations, color illustrations, graphs, and charts to underscore the major points. He offers practical strategies for attaining peacefulness, including creating a “peace journal.” Having been active in religious training and conferencing for over 30 years, he has developed inclusive ideas that, while adhering strictly to a Christian framework, also incorporate practices from other sources. His lengthy section on meditation techniques, for example, is somewhat outside the Christian mainstream and includes a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi, showing a willingness to accept eclectic viewpoints. In examining and charting the evils of war, he urges us to study the subject in the light of our own feelings and actions. His overarching thesis—that we have been designed by an omnipotent, omnipresent creator to align ourselves more closely to the divine example—is one that will undoubtedly attract religious study groups and sincere seekers after biblical truth.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review