In Gallagher’s inspiring account, faith challenges and confuses as well as consoles.
A call to the Episcopalian priesthood initiates a period of grieving and a test of vocation.
Still a member of Trinity Episcopal, the Santa Barbara parish she wrote about so affectingly in Things Seen and Unseen (1998), Gallagher felt drawn to the ministry. Her brother Kit had recently died in New Mexico after a long illness, and she ponders the meaning of his life and death while also describing the yearlong process of “discernment,” during which a person feeling the call to ministry is considered by a select group of church members. Confronting the Christian faith’s most daunting and fundamental question, life after death, she was comforted by the notion that resurrection is about using the death of a loved one, and of Jesus, as a way of making a new life for ourselves as well, of “practicing resurrection.” By embracing their lives, and life itself, we can come to a sacred place. But before the author reached this place, where she gained insights into her vocation, she had to deal with changes in her parish and conflicts in her marriage and career. The vestry and congregation accepted a gay rector and decided to celebrate gay unions; her agnostic husband questioned her decision to be a priest; and she was troubled by the conflict between the bureaucratic demands of running a parish and the life of the spirit. Though of necessity more self-absorbed than in her previous work, Gallagher firmly places her experiences within the life of her church. She also describes the testing she underwent, as the church hierarchy assessed her spiritual, intellectual, and psychological fitness for the ministry. As the process neared its end, she had doubts of her own, not about faith but about fulfilling her other vocation as a writer in a busy ministry.
In Gallagher’s inspiring account, faith challenges and confuses as well as consoles.Pub Date: March 25, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-40594-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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