Just Trust Life: A Journey with Teilhard de Chardin

by Christine M. Tracy

164 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2025

About the author

Christine M. Tracy is a writer, journalist, rhetorician, and Teilhardian scholar. She holds a Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she studied the evolution of media. Inspired by the “noosphere,” Teilhard’s word for collective thought energy, Tracy coined the term “newsphere” and wrote The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment and The Mystic As Everyman. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, where she skis, swims, hikes and is engaged with progressive ideas and spiritual communities.

Reviews

[Virginia Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tracy's book roused in me a warming serenity and the reassuring sense that life's challenges, especially the most difficult ones, have purpose. Or that they can if we engage with them honestly. Chapters are introduced with gems of Teilhard: "the difficulty lies not in solving problems but in expressing them correctly" and "exterior emergencies or shocks are indispensable." Scenes from Tracy's life then color them in. Just Trust Life is a thoughtful, comfortable read, to be appreciated over and over. It's a courageous self-examination, both intimate and from 20,000 feet, guided by the insights of an extraordinary soul who embraced his own truth unapologetically and with courage.

[Sandi York · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just Trust Life takes us on a journey of Teilhard’s philosophy through the eyes and life stories of a struggling mother and academic. Christine Tracy draws on the power and wisdom of Teilhard’s words to find strength when she desperately needs it, to construct her own universe, and to believe in herself. The storytelling is beautiful, real, heartbreaking, and heartwarming. I found myself thinking, “that’s what I need to do when I’m feeling so overwhelmed,” or “I need to put that quote on my wall to remember it.” Cheering Christine on the whole way through some nail-biting times, I found that this book was the perfect way to learn about Teilhard and the power of his ideas.

[Frank Frost · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Fast and Inspiring Read
Christine Tracy has written a lovely personal memoir that reads like a novel. Introducing visionary Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as an inspiration and virtual mentor in her prologue, she takes us on a tour of her life, through thick and thin, in ten engaging chapters, each a story in itself. Her title, Just Trust Life, springs from the inspiration she takes from Teilhard to face the obstacles (what he would call diminishments) in her life. By interlacing Teilhard’s insights with her own existential encounters with life, she introduces us to this famous priest, scientist, and philosopher, while offering hope and encouragement to the rest of us who also face reversals and crises in our lives. Teilhard was an evolutionist a century ago when evolution wasn’t cool in the Catholic Church and paid a price for it. Above all, Teilhard’s version of evolution emphasizes the evolution of consciousness, offering a vision of hope for the future. And this is the evolution that Dr. Tracy details in her own life. She knows how to tell a story and makes reading a pleasure.

[Gail Storey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Christine Tracy's book, Just Trust Life; A Journey with Teilhard de Chardin, so compelling that I stayed up most of the night to read it. It seems to me a brilliant synthesis of her personal struggles, the times we live in, and Teilhard de Chardin's groundbreaking insights into our evolutionary purpose. Who would ever think to interweave marriage, divorce, and motherhood, addiction and recovery, hypertext and the internet, the noosphere and the mystical in the same book, but she's done it, with clarity and warmth. I learned so much. This is truly a book for our confusing times, and I feel encouraged for myself and for our collective transformation.

[Tabi Engler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this on my two month sober-versary. Certainly a blessing for me. Grateful to be let in to Dr. Tracy’s journey of faith and sobriety. Great introduction to Teilhard.