AWAKENED FAITH

Wojcik, in her debut with co-author Anthony, shares her spiritual journey and the deeper meanings she’s found within the Lord’s Prayer.

This memoir’s first chapter touches on the author’s life struggles, which included a divorce and antidepressants. Her difficulties led her to Anthony, “an ordained minister and intuitive healer.” Wojcik found that the information Anthony shared “was the foundation for the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4—the Lord’s Prayer.” The bulk of the memoir delves further into this discovery, using each of the prayer’s lines as a pivot for reflection; along the way, she sprinkles in additional autobiographical details. She asserts that Jesus’ “so-called ‘lost years’ ” were spent studying in Eastern countries, “suggesting compatibility between Eastern and Western philosophies.” She also emphasizes the importance of meditation and the existence of spiritual guides and angels, while providing examples of the latter in her own life. She even touches on physics and quantum theory, and how the earth’s “electromagnetic grid” is "[o]ften referred to as the Christ consciousness grid.” In a chapter on one of the Lord’s Prayer’s key phrases (“and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”), she makes the case that the line is an acknowledgement of reincarnation and karma. She concludes by noting how she realized that part of her life’s mission was to write this very book. Wojcik, a Wisconsin-based marketing-communications consultant and writer, offers a sincere, smooth-flowing narrative that will hold particular appeal to those readers who seek links among traditional religion, science and New-Age spirituality. Many other works on these different topics are already available (some of which are cited in this book’s bibliography), but Wojcik’s use of the Lord’s Prayer is a compelling organizing construct. Overall, she offers a positive message and relatable, well-reasoned musings on her various themes.

A gracefully executed exploration of the interconnectedness of different types of spiritual and scientific thought.