Spiritual seekers may wish to dip in and out of this packed examination of contemporary Christianity to find guidance.
A midlife crisis leads a man to recount his experiences with spirituality, Christianity, and “Heart Intelligence” in this meditation on questions of faith.
What does it mean to be disconnected from your own life? How can a greater awareness of the “psychospiritual dynamics of life” make people change their breakdowns into reformations? Divided into four parts, Grant’s debut book attempts to illustrate how his own spiritual journey can help people better understand their feelings, apply new interpretations of Christianity, and manifest “Heart Intelligence” in their lives. For the past 12 years, his quest has taken him everywhere from Quaker meetings to reiki classes to a nine-day “esoteric retreat.” But it isn’t until he finds the teachings of Watchman Nee, a “Christian seer,” that his ideas of Jesus and contemporary Christianity radically change. The “tree of knowledge” and the “tree of life” are referred to throughout the volume as Grant explains his discovery of Celtic Christianity (different from Roman Christianity), his work as a psycho-spiritual life coach, and the intimate process of crafting this book. The later chapters include practical applications for Heart Intelligence as well as a “call to action” to further explore the concepts and volumes that led to his own awakening. Grant’s prose feels immediate, especially as the work is written in the present tense, documenting his experiences. Some readers may become weary of this diarylike structure, as the stream-of-consciousness style makes room for an overwhelming number of epiphanies (a butterfly, a moment with his father, the influence of his foster daughter, a yoga class, a moment outside of a bank). Still, this well-informed book displays Grant’s wide knowledge of spiritual teachings, and his earnest questioning of the direction of modern Christianity should resonate with restless churchgoers. But there’s so much information presented that one wonders if more would be gleaned from well-organized essays instead of the detailed and meandering vignettes, especially when the author admits that “my words are probably for my own eyes.”
Spiritual seekers may wish to dip in and out of this packed examination of contemporary Christianity to find guidance.Pub Date: May 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5434-8500-4
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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