When Spiritually Dry

Crowd-sourcing: what books do you recommend to folks who say they are going through a period of spiritual dryness and want to reconnect with God? I’ve got some old favorites, but I wonder if there are new resources out there of which I am not aware…thanks!

These are the books the RevGals recommended. You will find many of them in our Amazon Store. We welcome your suggestions in the comments below.

• “Classic English novels,” such as Austen, Dickens, and Eliot (George), or Jane Eyre
• Anything by Henri Nouwen
• Ragamuffin Gospel
• Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning
• Psalms
• Fr. Greg Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart
• Sara Miles
• Nora Gallagher
• Robert Alter’s translation and commentary of the Psalms
• Poetry (Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, Rumi, Jane Kenyon, Denise Levertov, Billy Collins)
• Wendell Berry’s Hannah Coulter 
• Bo Caldwell’s Distant Land of my Father
• Wendell Berry’s Sabbath writings
• Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede
• C S Lewis’ Voyage to Venus (aka “Perelandra”), particularly the final chapters
• Richard Rohr
• Mary Robinson’s Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice
• Book of Common Prayer: The Daily Office is my go-to, even if it feels like going through the motions. I especially appreciate the Compline. The truncated prayers for individuals/households too.
• God Got a Dog by Cynthia Rylant.
• 1000 Gifts by Ann Voscamp.
• J. Philip Newell. His explications of Celtic Christian Spirituality have spoken deeply to my mind and heart in recent years. I would start with Listening for the Heartbeat of God
• Thoughts Matter by Mary Margaret Funk
• Gerald May The Awakened Heart
• Listening for God by Renita Weems
• Anything by Frederick Buechner
• I Heard the Owl Call My Name (Margaret Craven)
• Acedia by Kathleen Norris, also the Cloister Walk
• Anne Lamott
• The letters of Mother Teresa (who also felt spiritually dry often in life)
• Thomas Merton
• Life of the Beloved (Henri Nouwen)
• Learning to Fall A good one for everyone, actually.
• Barbara Brown Taylor just published Learning to Walk in the Dark
• BBT old-fashioned-favorite, When God is Silent
• For someone who suffers depression, not just a ‘dry time’, Barbara Cawthorne Crafton’s When Jesus Wept: When Faith and Depression Meet

• Sleeping with Bread
• Madeleine L’Engle
• Kate Braestrup’s writing, esp a recent one on prayer.
• Rachel Hackenberg, Writing To God. You don’t have to be a writer to appreciate her lovely poem/prayers.