Nancy J. Nordenson

Just Think: Nourish Your Mind to Feed Your Soul

Just Think hopes to meet the reader at the place of spiritual longing. Spiritual longing can take many forms: a wish for meaning, a yearning for purpose and significance, a need for affirmation and assurance, an inner loneliness, an attraction to joy or beauty, a hunger for God. Most people don’t look to their minds to help them satisfy the longing they feel, however. Thinking, the activity of the mind, is typically associated either with academic pursuits or strategies to succeed or be clever. It is seldom considered in terms of its association with the life of the soul. Yet the association is strong. Ideas and insights are just some of the prizes of thinking that overflow the cognitive perimeter to wash over and flood the soul with vitality. Questions and searches deepen the soul. Knowledge invites the soul to join the mind in actions of service and belief. In prayer, mind and soul unite to participate in mystery. Through attentiveness, study, and contemplation, God is recognized and known, swelling both mind and soul with life. With thinking as spiritual practice, mind meets soul and both are bound together.

(Please note, although the cover of this book markets itself more to women than men, the inside of the book is for both.)


Click to read endorsements and peruse the Table of Contents and a partial bibliography.

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Nothing Can Separate

A new print journal entered the literary marketplace in November 2006, Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression. I was very excited to have an essay in its first issue and have it awarded the Editor's Choice award.

My contribution is a piece called "Nothing Can Separate," which weaves together the story of a friend's funeral and the story of my son's head injury. A friend of mine, Chad Gusler, also has a story in the issue. Some names you might recognize in the contributor list are Luci Shaw and Scott Cairns.

Here's what Relief's editor-in-chief Kimberly Culbertson wrote about it, "Nordenson's essay beautifully weaves two tragedies into one conversation, tracing her thoughts as she struggles to understand the realities of Christ in the face of death. Her piece recoils against the easy answers and clichés we often encounter when tragedy strikes, and her intimacy with despair and Christ leave me tearful and awestruck each time I read it."