Next to Godliness: Finding the Sacred in Housekeeping by Alice Peck (Editor)

From the Publisher

Be they our kitchens after a meal or our communities after a crisis, we all face the times-and opportunities-when we must clean up. Through a beautiful, diverse and eclectic array of personal narratives, fiction, sacred texts and verse, this inspiring book offers new perspectives on the unique ways we can reach out for the Divine within the simple acts of washing the dishes, doing the laundry, making a home and more. Giving the process of cleaning house depth and resonance, these writings will speak to your heart and allow you to see beyond the task at hand and into a greater undertaking-to realize the sacred in all that we do. From sweeping the home, to organizing the office, to cleaning up the more daunting "Big Messes" in our communities, this engaging book touches upon every facet of our lives.

David Crumm - Detroit Free Press

From one of the most innovative religious publishers comes a book that many readers may skip over in stores. Inspiration in housekeeping? But Peck's breadth of vision in choosing dozens of selections on this timeless theme turn the book into a cultural landmark exploring our changing attitudes about home.

Ron Charles - The Washington Post

As the Book of Ecclesiastes says, there is "a time to keep, and a time to throw away." And a new collection of writings about the serenity -- indeed, the spirituality -- to be found in creating order at home suggests that the time for the latter is now.
"Next to Godliness" (Skylight Paths Publishing, $19.99), compiled and edited by Alice Peck, is not a guide to how to clean but a thoughtful, surprising anthology that aims to inspire us to think differently about how we keep our domestic space.

Publishers Weekly

In recent years Americans have had a renewed love affair with their homes, so it's no surprise to discover new attentiveness to cleaning them. This collection of tidbits from essays, fiction and poetry that reference housecleaning, compiled by an editor and producer in the television industry, explores everything from Booker T. Washington scolding Negroes who kept house poorly to the "big mess" made by the attacks on the Twin Towers. The book, from a multifaith and multicultural perspective, includes everything from the obvious and well-known (Thich Nhat Hanh and Brother Lawrence on washing dishes) to the less expected (Jarvis Jay Masters writing about cleaning his cell on death row). Some pieces have only the most tenuous connection to housekeeping, much less what's sacred about it, such as the excerpt from Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, where cleaning serves primarily as backdrop. While many excerpts are intriguing, the collection is largely unprocessed, with only brief introductions to the sections on washing dishes, laundry, sweeping and so forth, and no introductions to the individual excerpts. While each piece includes some aspect of housekeeping, the reader is left not quite knowing what to make of the whole. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents