by Paul R. Corts ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8, 2016
A warm, encouraging reminder of faith throughout the year.
A calendar of Christian affirmations.
In this conversational and extremely amiable work of Christian nonfiction, Corts (Sabbaticals for Leaders, 2012) takes his readers through a year, day by day, offering verses from Scripture, some personal anecdotes from his own life, and generous helpings of practical wisdom that he’s accumulated over the years. It’s a familiar template in Christian writing—one with a thousand-year history—but its longevity is a sign of its effectiveness, and Corts does it very, very well by stressing the human need for spiritual shots in the arm: “We know from our own personal relationships with family members, spouses, children or other loved ones,” he writes, “that we feel closer to a person some times and less close other times.” The main focus of these daily devotions is always God, however, and Corts always gently shapes his meditations to move readers closer to a personal relationship with the deity. This can be a challenge on a daily basis, as the author often acknowledges; the rampant materialism of the modern world, he notes, is a constant, eroding influence on Christian faith. “While our faith is in the unseen, we live our lives as believers in a world of reality that is very focused on the seen,” he writes. “Though we know it is fallacy, we live by the adage that ‘what you see is what you get!’ ” Some of Corts’ theological assertions are questionable, such as his frequent claim that the God of the Bible is slow to anger, which may dumbfound some readers. But the real strength of his book is his consistent presence as a character in his own narrative, relating his daily devotionals to incidents and periods in his own life. This autobiographical strand makes the whole enterprise extremely winning, and any Christian who’s ever had a rough day will be grateful to have its unfailingly friendly presence in easy reach.
A warm, encouraging reminder of faith throughout the year.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5127-3621-2
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
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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by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
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
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