Summary: Reba Riley’s twenty-ninth birthday was a terrible time to undertake a spiritual quest. For one, she was sick. For two, her chronic illness was untreatable, and it was slowly dismantling life as she knew it. But when her incurable physical condition forced her to focus on the spiritual injury she could fix–a whopping case of Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome — Reba undertook the challenge anyway: Visit thirty religions before her thirtieth birthday. This was to be transformation by spiritual shock therapy. She planned to find peace and healing … if it didn’t kill her first.

During her year of spiritual sojourn without traveling far from home, Reba:

• Danced the disco in a Buddhist temple
• Went to church in virtual reality, a movie theater, a drive-in bar, and a basement
• Was interrogated about her sex life by Amish grandmothers
• Got audited by Scientologists, mobbed by NPR junkies, and killed (almost)
• Fasted for thirty days without food — or wine, dammit!
• Washed her lady parts in a mosque bathroom
• Learned to meditate with an Urban Monk, sucked mud in a sweat lodge with a Suburban Shaman, and snuck into Yom Kippur with a fake grandpa in tow
• Discovered that the Godiverse met her exactly as she was, no matter where she was, and that she didn’t have to choose one religion to choose God…or good.

Written for everyone who crashes into religion when they go looking for peace, and for all those who value transformation of spirit and body, this poignant, funny and ultimately inspirational memoir reminds us healing is possible, brokenness can be beautiful, and that –sometimes– we have to get lost to get found.
Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rebariley/book/#ixzz3Scd9G474

Copyright: April 1, 2015
Publisher: Howard Books