A worthy book for those seeking company, not guidance, on their spiritual paths.
In this debut memoir based on a series of personal blog posts, Mueller questions God in order to discover her purpose in life.
Mueller had been a regular churchgoer for several years, but regularly experienced anger and frustration toward her loved ones. One day, after running errands with her mother, who had lately depended on her for care, Mueller had an emotional outburst. She told her mother several troubling truths in a restaurant parking lot, and then left the vehicle and started walking. While walking, she realized how easy it could be to leave her life behind. She began contemplating suicide. Shortly after, she entered a new understanding of God’s power and love. Her suicide plans evolved into a request for God to take her. This plea became a daily prayer for God to reveal her purpose. Mueller began to devote time to reading self-help and biblical stories (“I was starting to think the Bible was more like an instruction manual of how everything was created and how it all worked so we could know how to use them to live and be happy as God originally intended”). Though she felt unsuccessful in business, she was glad for the time to contemplate her relationship with God, and created a new product, called Message Balls—golf balls with text that encourages people to talk with God. Mueller is detailed in her analysis of life, capturing the day-to-day progression of thoughts, the mundane events, and the small miracles, which is natural for a writer working from blog posts. Her chapters are short, and often titled after an emotion or a state of mind with the ending of “ville” (“Complaintville” and “Cactusville,” for example). This strategy seems to indicate that the author has spent enough time pondering a certain element, embodying it, so that it feels like its own place. The book takes a somewhat mystical approach to discovering God’s will. The author pulls heavily from Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and guests on The Oprah Winfrey Show to complement her reading of the Bible. Mueller often compares the Bible to other self-help books to demonstrate its efficacy in turning a life around. And the author recounts disputes with other Christians to flag theological hotspots.
A worthy book for those seeking company, not guidance, on their spiritual paths.Pub Date: March 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5028-8636-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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