Seeing the Sacred

“A reverend and a writer, Julie Neraas becomes a seer of the sacred as she engages a new spiritual practice—taking a photo every day for a year. With an eye from childhood for the glint of agates, Julie finds in her lens unnoticed people and unexpected delights—a gnarled tree, a giggling neighbor, the living city—and wrestles the images into insights, inviting us on a journey of the eye and heart.”


—Joan Mitchell, CSJ, author of Mark’s Gospel: The Whole Story





“Julie Neraas’s Seeing the Sacred is a deeply engaging and inspiring meditation on photos taken in and of our everyday world, photos that can help to remind us of the astounding fact, in Abraham Joshua Heschel’s words, that there are facts at all. Heschel is one of many thoughtful guides Neraas perceptively introduces along the way, each calling to us to look—and look again.”


—Earl Schwartz, retired Assistant Professor of Religion, Hamline University





“Gawk, gaze, or merely glimpse—Julie Neraas alerts us to the deep truth that our eyes are windows to our souls. This gem of a book reveals a role for our smartphones in the formation of a life that is more meaningful, joyful, and just. A gifted writer and spiritual guide, she illumines a path from infinite distraction to paying attention to what matters most.”


—Sharon Daloz Parks, co-author of Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World