by Ramon Santos ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 30, 2014
One Christian’s account of being a biblical-style seer in the modern day.
In 1967, while Santos (Seers in the Kingdom, 2014) was in Japan during an earthquake, he says, he had his first “visible angel encounter,” although he’d previously seen the ghostly auras of some of the older boxers at the U.S. Marine Corps boxing camp. In this debut memoir, the author, a former Marine, asserts a reality in which he and some other fellow Christian evangelicals do mundane things such as charter buses and attend faith conferences while also seeing visions, healing the sick and commanding legions of angels to combat the forces of darkness. The result seems like a cross between Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ Left Behind series and Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan series. Santos’ storytelling is personable and energetic throughout. He and other spiritual road warriors travel to exotic locations such as India and South Africa, which he describes in some detail, where they thrillingly battle demons and lay hands on the sick. As his story unfolds, the author presents a picture of a feverishly active spiritual world, albeit a strictly Christian one. Some parts of the picture, however, may strike even his most credulous readers as a bit of a stretch. At one point, for example, an airline official tells him the charge for extra carry-on luggage, but he mishears it; when he’s told the charge again at the airport, he tells a friend that because the quote is familiar, he must have “supernaturally heard” it the first time. The book also portrays a God that’s interested in the smallest minutiae (as when Santos gets a free upgrade on a rental car); however, as is customary in such faith-narratives, God is unwilling to simply and unambiguously appear to everyone.
For evangelical Christian readers, Santos offers a lively account of being a spiritual force in a darkness-haunted world.
Pub Date: May 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493783663
Page Count: 230
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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More by Stephen Batchelor
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by Kerry Egan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 2016
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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