"Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics" By Sara Billups, Baker Books, 225 pages

Sara Billups, a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator, presents a candid look at anxiety of the individual, anxiety of the Christian church and anxiety of politics in her second book, "Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics," which will be released Nov. 4.

Billups, who earned a Doctor of Ministry in the sacred art of writing at the Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary, is honest about struggling with her own generalized anxiety disorder throughout the text.

The first third of "Nervous Systems" includes memoir-style writing as Billups describes her anxiety while her parents are experiencing major health crises. Billups recommends tangible practices to manage the anxiety, mostly from her experiences with the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. She explains how embodiment and sacraments ground us in the present.

Billups then takes a critical yet compassionate eye to the American Christian church and its proclivity to fear and anxiety, which has resulted in a resurgence of Christian nationalism. While doing so, she raises her own spiritual anxiety by examining scrupulosity, an obsessive compulsive disorder that revolves around moral or religious guilt. She unpacks her own fears of belonging within her home church of 20 years and how stability and community are the roots of conquering that worry.

Her recommendation for dealing with systemic anxiety is expansiveness toward God and others.

Finally, Billups examines anxiety in politics and advises holy indifference and detachment for Christians who are dealing with fear and anxiety in the current political environment.

"Nervous Systems" is a timely read that is a resource of practices and recommendations in times of tension.