Warm account of a year in the life of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, a small parish in an N.Y.C. suburb. At first glance, this covers the same ground—daily life in a burgeoning Christian community—as Stanley G. Freedman's impressive Upon This Rock (p. 1550). But the parish Freedman describes is poor and black, whereas Taylor's is white and snugly middle-class. And that makes all the difference. No horrible drug wars here, or desperate poverty, or brutal crime. The crises are real but ordinary: confusion, doubt, disease, death. So are the pleasures: spiritual retreats, Eucharist celebrations, a chance to love one's neighbor. The maestro is Rev. Lincoln Stelk, a likable, fairly conservative former bomber pilot who oversees his parishioners with a firm but pliant hand. Stelk draws many lapsed Christians back into the fold, but drives a few devout members away to other parishes. He has his own problems, of course, like a 23-year-old daughter about to marry a man in his mid-40's; but with prayer and trust, all is resolved. As the year bumps along, nothing special happens: The church expands its food bank, baptizes new members, cares for the sick, renews the bell tower, distributes turkeys at Thanksgiving, deals with the strain of Operation Desert Storm. Stelk's sermons, frequently described, range from prayers of forgiveness to worries about premarital sex. They make an impact on the author, who buries both his parents during the year, and who gives thanks that now—after 30 years away from church—he can see with his newborn eyes of faith that they are ``raised up among angels.'' ``What connects human beings to God,'' says Taylor, ``is generosity and sharing.'' That wholesome, simple tone informs this entire book—a straightforward, sincere, skillfully spliced slice-of-Christian-life.
Pub Date: March 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-70944-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
