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The world is in a water crisis resulting from pollution, climate change, population growth and wasteful use of fresh water. Close to two million people live in water-stressed regions. Scientists call these areas “hot stains” that now include northern China, large parts of Asia and Africa, the Middle East, Australia, the midwesterm United States and sections of South American and Mexico.

Politicians and the news media treat localities or regions as is they were droughts, a cyclical situation that would eventually remedy itself. The hydrological cycle is broken by dams, pollution, wasteful practices and concreting land. Every year, a new desert the size of Rhode Island is created in China. The US national Center for Atmosphere Research reports that the percentage of the earth’s land area stricken by serious drought has more than doubled between the 1970s and 2005.

"Our high God, the sovereign wisdom of all, arrayed himself in this low place and made himself entirely ready in our poor flesh to do the service and the office of motherhood himself in all things."

"As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother."

"A mother can give her child milk to suck, but our precious mother, Jesus, can feed us with himself."

"The mother may suffer the child to fall sometimes, and to be hurt in diverse manners for its own profit, but she may never suffer that any manner of peril come to the child, for love. And though our earthly mother may suffer her child to perish, our heavenly Mother, Jesus, may not suffer us that are His children to perish: for He is All-mighty, All-wisdom, and All-love; and so is none but He,—blessed may He be!"

Reviewed by Brian T. Olszewski, Catholic News Service

God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion By Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ Jossey-Bass 233 pages $24.95

The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul By Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary HarperOne 400 pages $25.95.

God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion by Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno and "The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul" by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary are university science courses.

In the former, readers receive the overview course, the general-interest offering that is educational and enjoyable for those majoring in science as well as those who are pursuing another field but who need a certain number of credits in science.

Brother Consolmagno's conversational tone in imparting his scholarship will put readers in the midst of a group discussion akin to the lab portion of a lecture course. In his joint roles as religious and techie, he is able to explain both, almost as though he is talking as a religious to the techies and as a techie to people of faith.

Like the professor who knows that his topic can be dry and overwhelming, Brother Consolmagno weaves humor into it. The lighter fare is appreciated amid the heaviness of science and religion.

In the second chapter, "Why God Is Useful," Brother Consolmagno sets the discussion or reflective tone with a series of questions: If God is the answer, what was the question? Why is there something instead of nothing? What do I want and why do I want it? How do I make sense of my life?