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Christie Purifoy’s new book, “Placemaker, Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty and Peace,” is — hands down — the most beautiful book I have read in a long, long time. And home is multifaceted, involving places and things — buildings and gardens, brick and mortar, dirt and compost; it involves stories — including history and personalities from the past, the literal and figurative meaning of very particular trees in very particular places; and, of course, it also involves all kinds of people — spouses and children, siblings and neighbors, friends nearby and far away. She writes lyrically about things like beauty, longing, the importance of limits, the role of dead and dying things to the ongoing life of the planet, the necessity of wilderness experiences, the different values found in moving from place to place and staying put in one, letting our roots sink deeply into the soil of a particular kind of life. She shares her knowledge with us, telling us about beautiful public gardens, about people from the past who made the present as lovely as it is by planting and tending those gardens.

From time to time, I am asked to lead in our time of community prayer at Montecito Covenant Church, the community where my husband and I have been active for the last 23 years. This is what God says, the God who builds a road right through the ocean, who carves a path through pounding waves, the God who summons horses and chariots and armies— they lie down and then can’t get up; they’re snuffed out like so many candles: “ Because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth, Drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people custom-made to praise me. here it is — new growth on the hills of our city; the sounds of new construction going on where all has been washed away; and here in our sanctuary, the coos and cries of new life already in our midst and the promise of new life still to come.

“This is what the LORD says—”Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland…I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise

The following review is written as a part of my responsibility as a member of the Launch Team for Pete’s latest book. I received an advance copy in exchange for these words