NINETY MORNINGS

Ninety short readings for the woman who wants something honest with her first cup of tea - and no promises she will have to explain away later.

Most devotionals only work on good mornings. This one was written for the other kind.

Ninety Mornings is a book of short daily reflections - one page or two, about the time it takes a kettle to boil - on attention, gratitude, work, waiting, disappointment and ordinary faithfulness. There is no program to complete, no thirty-day challenge, and nothing to fill in. Just one small, concrete thing to look at each morning, and an honest turn at the end instead of a tidy moral.

It will not tell you that faith produces good outcomes. It does not suggest that prayer, gratitude or the right frame of mind will bring money, health, or the resolution of a problem. That teaching leaves too many good people quietly convinced their troubles are evidence of a fault in their believing, and there is none of it here.

What is here is quieter, warmer and considerably more durable: doubt treated as ordinary rather than shameful, unanswered prayer met without an explanation, grief described the way it actually behaves, and the plain business of getting up and beginning again for the twelfth time without ceremony.

What's inside:

- 90 short readings, grouped into 16 themed chapters you can read in order or dip into as the week requires

- Beginning again, attention and the present hour, and gratitude that is honest rather than performed

- Work as it actually is, money and contentment, and the long business of waiting

- Disappointment, unanswered prayer, doubt, and the forgiveness that takes years

- Other people, the body and rest, grief, service, small habits, endings and continuing

- A quiet, unhurried voice that never scolds, never exhorts and never brightens things up