The Shape of Living

by David F. Ford

In an overwhelming world, how can our lives be shaped to their greatest potential? David F. Ford examines the whirl of life today – the endless information that inundates us and pervades our lives. He serves up practical wisdom for coping creatively, offering a vision of genuine Christian life that can face the best and worst of today’s world.

Genres: Spirituality, Christian, Christian Living, Theology, Religion, Christianity

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

David Frank Ford (born 23 January 1948, Dublin) is an academic and public theologian. He has been the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge since 1991. His research interests include political theology, ecumenical theology, Christian theologians and theologies, theology and poetry, the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within universities, hermeneutics, and inter-faith theology and relations. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning.

Reviews

[Thomas Estes · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first interaction with the work of David Ford did not disappoint. “The Shape of Living” is a careful exploration of the whole “ecology of life,” by turns profoundly wise and mundanely practical. Ford is a careful thinker attuned to the polarities and interrelations of personhood and community, freedom and responsibility, relationship and solitude, suffering and joy. In a world of “multiple overwhelmings,” he suggests that we live in a way that lets one of them be the overwhelming that shapes the others. Toward this end, his vision is rooted in and resourced by the Christian tradition but open to and appreciative of the “otherness” of his neighbors who make life so transformative and rich.

A particular delight is the attention given to the poetry of Ford’s friend Micheal O’Siadhail. Halfway through the book, I paused to order O’Siadhail’s collected poems, and I expect he will quickly become one of my favorites.

[Krista]

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[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Shape of Living begins slowly, talking of overwhelmings and quoting poetry, not sounding anything like evangelical self-help literature. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, is interested in the love of God (for us and in us) and vocation. Vocation is not career or narrow calling, but the long-term shaping of our desires and how it forms our lives. A really fine book that makes the familiar discussion of Christian's disciplines and habits established in daily life both strange and absolutely appealing.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Ford deals with the reality of being overwhelmed. We usually try to think of how to avoid being overwhelmed; this book takes for granted that we'll be overwhelmed by both the positive and the negative. Ford primarily uses an interplay between the Bible and the poetry of Micheal O'Siadhail along with other resouces and his own experiences to give us a sense of how to live a life that's constantly being overwhelmed by something - and often by many things simultaneously.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book at my local university library and I thought it might be an interesting read. I admit it left me a little flat, not so much because it is wrong, but, for some reason, it just didn't grab me. Ford interweaves good spiritual practice with poetry, but it felt a little impersonal to me. I'm not sure if that is just where I was at the moment or whether it was feeling a bit cerebral.

Still, this is a sound book and, for those who love poetry better than I, an evocative one.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

haven't read it all but some of my favorite quotes are from this book. the quotes were in Susan Howatch's Starbridge series - which are my favorites!!

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a winsome, profound book of Christian spiritual formation written by a Cambridge theology professor and pastor.

[Joseph Gascho]

A top ten, a wow book