Sacred Pauses, by April Yamasaki

Yamasaki writes out of her experience as a pastor who practices the spiritual disciplines. The disciplines call us to pause from our busy lives, and their effect infiltrates and influences the rest of our days in conscious and unconscious ways. Each chapter focuses on a spiritual discipline, draws on scripture, includes anecdotes as illustration and suggests one or more activities for readers. Yamasaki’s very accessible writing makes this book of value to many people, including beginners in Christian spirituality. Of course, in these matters, as Thomas Merton once said (as quoted by Yamasaki): “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners.” We have to start someplace, and this volume is a good place to begin.