Learning the Good Life: Wisdom from the Great Hearts and Minds That Came Before

by Jessica Hooten Wilson (Editor), Jacob Stratman, David I. Smith (Foreword)

Discover the Good Life as you learn from the wise voices of the past. We've lost ourselves. Disconnected from the past and uncertain about the future, we are anxious about what our lives will be and troubled by a nagging sense of meaninglessness. Adrift in the world, many Christians have their identity completely wrapped up in work, and their definition of the "good life" is financial success. Fewer of are staying committed to the Christian faith, finding it difficult to reconcile their experience with their longings and desires. With so much uncertainty, where can we find a true vision of "the Good Life"? Learning the Good Life speaks to this malaise with a curated collection of voices from the past, inviting Christians into an ages-old dialogue with some of history's wisest and most reflective minds. Featuring thought-provoking writings from a diverse lineup of over 35 writers and thinkers: Together these sages, writers, philosophers, and poets address important issues such as virtue, beauty, community, wonder, suffering, and meaning. Each of these texts are introduced by experts from a variety of Christian colleges and universities to help provide a richer narrative in which Christians can participate. Each text is also accompanied by discussion questions to provoke further thought and contemplation and to facilitate discussion when used in groups. Learning the Good Life is ideal for any Christian seeking a deeper connection to the wisdom of the past and wanting a more cohesive vision of the good life. Though not all these writers were themselves Christians, they all have a message for you. All of them are calling you to die to yourself, to your habits of indulgence, to your pride and ambition—and to dedicate your time to learning, thinking, and loving.

Genres: Education, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Unfinished, Christian, Teaching

320 pages, Hardcover

Published May 3, 2022

About the author

Jessica Hooten Wilson (PhD, Baylor University) is the inaugural Visiting Scholar of Liberal Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She previously taught at the University of Dallas. She is the author or editor of eight books, including Reading for the Love of God, The Scandal of Holiness (winner of a Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit), and Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky (winner of a 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award). Wilson speaks around the world on topics as varied as Russian novelists, Catholic thinkers, and Christian ways of reading.

Reviews

[Corey Wozniak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stand-outs for me:
- Seneca the Younger, from “On the Shortness of Life”
- John Amos Comenius, from _The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart_
- George Herbert, Five Poems
- John Milton, from Areopagitica
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, from “Ulysses”
- Frederick Douglass, from _Narrative of the Life of F. Douglass_
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from _Aurora Leigh_
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
- Josef Pieter, “Learning How to See Again”

[Michelle Cheney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will be a wonderful teaching tool in my classroom!