Soul Woundedness - by Paul Houston Blankenship-Lai

Book Synopsis

A profound exploration into the spiritual beliefs and practices of Seattle's unhoused youth

Soul Woundedness is an intimate, piercing book about everyday life for young adults living on the streets of Seattle. Based on over five years of research and as a participant-observer, Paul Houston Blankenship-Lai presents the personal experiences of "street kids," highlighting how their spiritual beliefs and practices offer them comfort, a sense of community, and a feeling of belonging amidst their struggles. They also demonstrate how spirituality on the streets can alienate people from themselves and the world.

The stories Blankenship-Lai tells here are about how social wounds go soul deep, and how seemingly antireligious spiritual practices, fashioned in an almost unlivable local world, help people create a life still worth living. By paying deep, sustained attention to what spirituality is like on the streets and what difference it makes, Blankenship-Lai uncovers an important, overlooked dimension in the experience and study of homelessness. They invite us to enter these stories and to question how our own spiritual and otherwise practices can help create "a more loving love."

Aimed at a diverse audience, Soul Woundedness is a book not merely to educate but to transform. It is particularly relevant for those interested in spirituality's role in addressing social inequities and underscores the importance of spiritual practices in overcoming adversity and promoting social change, making a compelling case for a world where everyone has a place to call home.

Review Quotes

Paul Houston Blankenship-Lai's book Soul Woundedness: Spirituality on the Streets of Seattle, is a substantial contribution to the disciplines of homelessness and religion. His insights are based on hours of ethnographic work with youth who are homeless in Seattle, putting their stories from the streets in conversation with theories from the discipline of spirituality. Paul gives a nuanced understanding of both the joy and travails of the youth, and notes that while they critique much of Christian theology that has judged them, they nevertheless have a deep spirituality that gives them a sense of hope and community. Paul models and offers ways that we can be present to and accompany these youth who are ignored and mistreated while also identifying the larger structural factors that cause poverty and homelessness.---Dr. Laura Stivers, author of Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches

Soul Woundedness is a heartfelt and moving book about one of the great social crises of our time. It is also an ethnography about the nature and experience of God.---TM Luhrmann, author of How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others

Take this journey with Paul into the lives of our neighbors on the street. He opens himself and us to the inner center of homelessness and our humanity. Through the practice of a deeply loving spirituality, we are invited to share with new understanding in creating caring community. Soul Woundedness should become a classic text in the social sciences and humanities, a staple in religious studies and a basic read in every congregation. Extraordinary, sensitive, revelatory and healing.

---Craig Rennebohm, author of Souls in the Hands of a Tender God

About the Author

Paul Houston Blankenship-Lai is a spiritual companion and Assistant Professor of Spirituality at the Earlham School of Religion, Richmond, Indiana. They have contributed to volumes on spiritual and religious responses to homelessness, including Land of Stark Contrasts: Faith-Based Responses to Homelessness (Fordham, 2021) and Street Homelessness and Catholic Theological Ethics (Orbis, 2019).