What do I need to be good? How can I truly be happy? To whom or to what dare I give my ultimate loyalty, my deepest love, my full and total service? Out of all this moral discourse and analysis, what can I find and use to make a life, and not just a living? -from the Introduction After more than thirty years as minister at Harvard University, Peter J. Gomes has given his share of advice to the best and the brightest as they set sail into the world. Yet he has found that even these highly privileged students often run aground on the harsh realities of a life based in values that lead to ruin. The Good Life is his distillation of years of observation and insight into what is wrong and how we can all set our minds and hearts on higher things. Gomes begins with the contemporary crisis of moral education in higher learning and subverts the prevalent assertion that the youth of today's colleges and universities are spoiled and lacking in the capacity and desire to become good people and good citizens. Impressed by the sharp moral curiosity of young people today, as well as their strong desire to know, to be, and to do good, Gomes sets out to reclaim the tradition of virtue he believes can make this the greatest generation. In this search for a new nobility, he distinguishes between the plausible lies that our culture tells us about the good life and the fantastic truths that alone can bring true and abiding happiness, working through each of the unquestioned values of modern life. Along the way he redefines the central elements of the pursuit of the good life (failure, success, discipline, and freedom), then offers a new presentation of the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude), and finally concludes with a passionate argument for the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. A challenge to educators, civic leaders, parents, and the youth who hold our collective future, The Good Life is a timely and important book about the recovery of moral knowledge and the choices we must make in order to live truly well.Like New Condition: Used book that is in almost brand-new condition. ISBN: 9780060000752 ISBN10: 0060000759 Contributors: Gomes, Peter J.,
Publishers Weekly,Gomes, Minister of Harvard's Memorial Church and author of the bestselling The Good Book, concludes this book by noting that, in it, he sounds "preachy, homiletical and even moralistic," but then acknowledges that as a professor of Christian morals, he is entitled. Indeed, this book is nothing if not homiletical, and sometimes a bit long-windedly so, but the young people to whom Gomes writes should be so lucky as to have him write a dozen more equally preachy, loquacious tomes for their edification. Gomes begins by articulating what "the good life" is, and then explores the virtues that enable one to live that life. Little of what Gomes writes is, by his own admission, particularly new. His thesis that doing good is essential to the good life is not radical, nor are his admonitions to pursue lives of prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope and love. In fact, it is the unabashedly Christian, traditional and non-radical tenor of Gomes's sermonizing that gives it weight and nobility. While he has a few strong words for anti-gay Christians (even these sentiments are tempered and thoughtful), Gomes spends most of his time praising the great explicators and exemplars of the good life, including Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa and Desmond Tutu. His stated goal is to "pursue a middle way between the celebrations of a reactionary cultural conservatism and a self-satisfied acceptance of the inevitability of the status quo." He does this and more with equal parts grace, humility and intellectual rigor. (May) Forecast: Hailed by Time magazine as one of the seven best preachers in America, Gomes has a strong and loyal following. Expect solid sales for this title, which will be promoted by national advertising and a 10-city author tour. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
