"Recapturing The Wonder: Transcendent Faith In A Disenchanted World"

The rhythms that shape our lives, Mike Cosper writes, are often profoundly secular--and commercial. From Super Bowl Sunday to Valentine's Day and beyond, our lives are full of commodified sentiment. They have become "disenchanted."

Cosper, founder of Harbor Media and a former pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, says that for many there is "a subtle-but-strong resistance to faith and a skepticism toward anything that veers toward the supernatural. … A disenchanted world is a material world, where what you see is what you get." Religion becomes a personal take-it-or-leave-it affair.

His new book invites readers into a different set of rhythms, into a Cosmos ("an orderly creation full of meaning, … full of mystery, a place where … an unseen spiritual realm is constantly at work….").

As Christians prepare for Ash Wednesday and Lent, a time of contrition, the book's message, about rethinking the stories we tell ourselves, seems fitting. Those from different faith traditions will find much to savor as well.

"Recapturing The Wonder: Transcendent Faith In A Disenchanted World" ($17 in paperback from InterVarsity Press; also for Amazon Kindle) focuses on seven "pathways" or spiritual disciplines to aid readers in "embracing a different story and, with it, a different set of habits and practices."

Cosper notes the importance of the rhythms of the Church year and introduces "breath prayers" to mark the shorter moments of our lives. This is not a life of "spectacle and hype" (he contrasts the "glory cloud manifestations" at Bethel Church in Redding with the idea that God's presence "is often much simpler, quieter, and more subtle").

There are big moments, of course. Easter is coming. "Who needs a greater drama than death, resurrection, and scandalous grace?"

At times we need to enter into solitude with God, but then into solidarity with others. Gifts we give should reaffirm "bonds between people." There is a time of feasting and fasting (and Cosper provides practical help).

Such a life "oriented around the spiritual disciplines is not a pathway to pleasing God but a pathway to experience the joy of God that is already ours in Jesus." It is to live in an enchanted world.