Book Review: Already There

I just had the pleasure of reading Fr. Mark Mossa's Already There Letting God Find You.  Does the title have you thinking to yourself "What?  God doesn't already know where I am?"  Well, yeah, He does unless maybe you have some stupendous ability to hide yourself from God or maybe you've got an invisibility cloak [which I'm pretty sure only exists in Harry Potter].  We can try to hide ourselves from God, but God does not hide himself from us and really, that's sort of the root of this book.  Fr. Mark essentially takes us on a journey and shows us that God is already there and waiting for us to engage.  In this book he helps us to see how God is present even when we might think he's not there or worse,  is just standing by watching us struggle.

Fr. Mark's approach to spirituality is rather unique.  He uses bits of pop culture to show us how we can deepen our faith lives.  He makes some connections that I'm not sure I'd have made on my own and others that I've noticed in the past.  Some of his pop culture references will have me looking at a few books and movies a little differently.  Of all the pop culture references he makes in this book, I think there was only one that I was not familiar with.  I suspect this book will resonate best with people in the 20-40 year old age range (I know, it seems like a big gap, but when you're smack in the middle of it, it doesn't seem that way.).

I liked how incredibly readable the book was.  While reading Already There I just got the feeling that I was hanging out with a good friend.  It's engaging, it's interesting, it's humorous and it has the ability to be life changing.

This book is not one that you just read for a couple of days and pop on the shelf.  Ideally, one would want to take their time with this book in order to reflect on a certain aspect of letting God find you, or rather letting yourself become open to a deeper relationship with God.  For the purpose of writing this review, I read this book over the course of a week which is a shorter time span than I anticipate needing to read this book a second time around.  It's truly a book that you'll want to mull over. Ordinarily I would zip through an easily read book such as this in the span of a day or two, but I took it easy because of the warning in the introduction not to rush through the book.  Having made myself the victim of spiritual indigestion in the past, I now take caution when there are warnings about rapid consumption.  And really, how can I push through to the next chapter when I come face to face with a chapter that tells me at the conclusion that "this would be a good moment to close the book and just pray in silence. The book's not going anywhere and neither is God."?  Since it was evening when I read that particular chapter I couldn't argue. As long as the kids were in bed the statement held some truth.  The book wasn't going to walk away (They have in the past, it's a problem that goes with the territory of having kids--things disappear and mysteriously no one is to blame.). Having read through the book at a moderate pace, I have to say that I truly believe that this book will reward those who read it slowly.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company.  Visit The Catholic Company for more information on Already There-Letting God Find You and be sure to check out their great selection of Mary statues while you are there.

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book by The Catholic Company in exchange for my honest review.