Straightforward and clever in its choices—Christians coping with uncertainties should find inspiration in Jesus' turmoil...
Using Jesus’ experiences in the Garden of Gethsemane, a debut spiritual guide offers instruction and rumination for Christians dealing with spiritual doubts.
In her book, Faulks looks to one of the greatest challenges Christians encounter when their beliefs are tested and they feel God’s purpose is no longer clear to them. This Gethsemane experience, so named for the temptations Jesus himself grappled with as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before his Crucifixion, is a time when believers will confront pain, humiliation, slander, disappointment, betrayal, and most notably doubt as to the purpose of their ministries. To persevere over this kind of trial is no easy task, as, unlike Jesus, the individuals are not omniscient and cannot know the hearts of others. So instead, the path to becoming a Gethsemane believer focuses on self-examination, utilizing fasting, prayer, and the teachings of the Bible to recognize the sacrifices God asks for and to face these losses with humility instead of bitterness or anger. Ministry is emphasized not as a manner to exalt oneself or achieve personal salvation but rather as a gift given by God that is not to be sacrificed even in times of suffering or inconvenience. The end result, if the believer does not succumb to torment or grief, is a great strength of purpose and understanding of what the faith asks of its followers and deigns their destinies to be. The book is simple in its presentation and execution. It elucidates little on what one’s own spiritual fate will be, as such realizations are personal fare, and instead deftly illustrates the obstacles to its discovery. The biggest of these is “double-mindedness”—a person whose will is not wholly in agreement with God's and whose instability can lead to temptation by Satan and spiritual disobedience. The astute book breaks down concepts of ministry and prayer as actions that do not make demands but rather conform to God’s will, skillfully using well-cited Scripture and providing helpful questions and personal reflections to help strengthen and exercise Gethsemane belief. The work also details what the evidence of success might look like—from answered prayers to more spiritual thinking.
Straightforward and clever in its choices—Christians coping with uncertainties should find inspiration in Jesus' turmoil when facing Golgotha.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973607-87-8
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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