Your City Guide to God

Beneath the relentless rhythms of city life beats the heart of God, and award-winning author Marcy Heidish takes you into a more intimate relationship with him in the midst of crowds, chaos, and concrete. Her experiences from a curb in Brooklyn, the bay in San Francisco, a rooftop of Chartres Cathedaral in Paris, and the busy halls of Washington, D.C., help you see the city in a new light. She turns common city distractions, annoyances, and challenges into spiritual invitations or “gateways” to a new kind of contemplation where:

•screaming sirens become cues to silent intercession,

•skyscrapers, like spires, pull your eyes and thoughts heavenward,

•and red traffic lights work as “pause” buttons that call for you to stop and pray.

“In the city there is grit,” Marcy writes. And grime and garbage. But her practical tools in every chapter for reflection, discussion, and application help you see–whether you’re visiting, working, or dwelling in Philadelphia or Phoenix, New York or Los Angeles, Seattle or Syracuse–that in the city there is also grace.

"The city is a challenge for any spiritual life. The frenetic pace of activity — which is the motor that drives most of its inhabitants to live there — leaves little obvious time for the quiet a soul needs. Heidish, sometime novelist and here a spiritual memoirist-cum-theologian, sees the city not as an obstacle but a boon to life with God. Those moments most of us fume at waiting for a light to change, in a crowd cursing the red hand of the crosswalk? What a moment to pray — for those with whom one is suddenly in unplanned communion. Storefront churches, people in need and quiet corners of parks and gardens are all oases of grace, which we need to enter regularly in order to be fully ourselves. The book reads fluidly, especially for those at once drawn to and repulsed by cities. Heidish's memories of growing up in Manhattan include a physician father ready to set out at a moment's notice for a house call. He was too sophisticated for faith, until he wasn't, growing frailer and more faithful. His story becomes a sort of icon for the spiritual maturity for which Heidish lovingly calls. (June 17)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

“Soul and the City is a deeply inspiring call to awareness, to connection with God and with others, and ultimately to soulful worship through so many aspects of life in the city that we find mundane, undesirable, or that even often go unnoticed. Almost instantly, upon delving into its pages you find your perspective changed.”

Sarah Zacharias Davis, author of Confessions from an Honest Wife, Transparent, and The Friends We Keep

“Marcy Heidish has compiled a rich and nuanced touring companion to rival any Michelin or Eyewitness guide–usable in any city of the world. Keep it close and you will not only find your way amidst the city’s noise and rush, you will meet beauty and holiness no matter where you pause to look.”

Leigh McLeroy, author of The Beautiful Ache and The Sacred Ordinary

Life-long city dweller Marcy Heidish is an award-winning author of six novels and two non-fiction books. She teaches literature and creative writing at Fordham University, and resides in Manhattan with her husband.