Escape Routes: for People Who Feel Trapped in Life's Hells

You name the hell...there is a way out. After decades of pastoral counseling, Johann Christoph Arnold still marvels at our capacity to make life miserable for ourselves and one another. This book, his tenth, maps out a sure way out of life’s hells and toward a happy, meaningful life.

In contrast to the makeovers and quick fixes hawked by popular culture, Escape Routes offers a tougher prescription. Using real-life stories as travel guides, Arnold exposes the root causes of loneliness, frustration, alienation, and despair and shows how anyone, regardless of their age, income bracket, or social status, can find freedom and new life. The choices he presents are clear: "to be selfish or selfless, to forgive or to hate, to burn with lust or with love."

No matter what your problems, or who you are, this book will help you on your way, provided you’re ready to take its medicine.
,br>Arnold writes: “Call it life, call it hell: there’s not a person I’ve met who hasn’t been lonely, discouraged, depressed, or guilt-ridden at one time or another, if not sick, burned-out, or at sea in a relationship. Sometimes I know this because they have told me about their problems; sometimes I can tell just by looking in their eyes. That’s what got me started on this book—the fact that all of us have known some form of hell in our lives, and that insofar as any of us find freedom, confidence, companionship, and community, we will also know happiness.”

People have come to expect sound advice from Johann Christoph Arnold, an award-winning author whose recent books on sexuality, marriage, raising children, facing death, forgiving, and finding peace have sold over 300,000 copies in English and have been translated into 18 foreign languages. In thirty years as a pastor and counselor, he has advised thousands of families and individuals, including the terminally ill, prison inmates, and teenagers. A native of Britain and father of eight grown children, he lives with his wife Verena in upstate New York.

An outspoken social critic and spokesperson for the Bruderhof--an international communal movement dedicated to a life of simplicity, service, and nonviolence--Arnold has been a guest on hundreds of talk shows and a speaker at numerous colleges and high schools. An internationally-known peace activist, Arnold has worked together with world leaders and other renowned peacemakers for reconciliation and justice in many of the world's conflict zones. Recent missions have taken him to Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and Central America - and into local schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons.