Small Pleasures: Finding Grace in a Chaotic World

Small Pleasures is a collection of forty-nine short meditative essays that help readers to turn aside from their chaotic lives for a while to experience grace and possibility in the small, critically important things in life. Author Justine Toms divides the book into five sections, each with essays that draw upon her many connections and her wealth of experiences:

* A Broad Horizon: How We See Ourselves in the World

* Animals and Nature as Teacher

* Be an Activist without Driving Yourself Crazy

* With a Little Help from Our Friends--Circles and Friendships

* Celebrations and Rituals

With a foreword by author Carole Lee Flinders (co-author of Laurel's Kitchen), Small Pleasures offers many ways for readers to "tune-in" to their daily lives and connect with what is good, meaningful, and beautiful.

"In this collection of meditations, Toms (True Work: Doing What you Love and Loving What You Do) offers harried overachievers a moment of respite, directing them through daily contemplation and humble rituals to reflect on wide-ranging topics — Buddhist proverbs, activism, service, connection with nature and the dynamism of 'sparkle brain,' a flexible and adaptive mindset. The diminutive essays are vaguely organized under broad sections ('A Wider Landscape,' 'Animals and Nature As Teacher,' 'Be an Activist Without Driving Yourself Crazy,' 'Circles and Friendships,' 'Celebrations and Rituals') that are appealing, but do not offer a cohesive enough thread to sew together the author's prescriptions. Two pieces do deserve special attention: 'A Sense of Place,' a tender tribute to childhood, and 'Circle of Your Own: Take The First Steps,' in which Toms credits Rev. Mary Manin Morrissey with the notion that everything is born twice — first in the imagination and then in the physical world — a compelling axiom as well as an elegant subtheme for the entire volume. Rather than a cover-to-cover read, Toms's slender book can best be accessed when needed and according to mood." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Justine Toms is cofounder of the syndicated radio program New Dimensions, which is broadcast on more than three hundred National Public Radio stations nationwide. Toms is co-author with Michael Toms of True Work: Doing What You Love and Loving What You're Doing. She lives in Northern California.