Rewarding, ripe wisdom for a life lived with open eyes and a caring soul.
A Maine-based pastor draws daily rations of wisdom from both nature and human foibles.
In short chapters that have the feeling of sermons, McCall seeks “deep chords of hope” to weather our fraught times. “Depression, suicide, anxiety and addiction, including wealth addiction, are rampant and threaten to crumble industrialized societies from within,” he writes, “playing into the hands of demagogues and the greedy. The author is clearly in tune with his surroundings, and the environment plays a crucial role in these thought pieces. Arguing that we “are moving from dogmatic religion established by male hierarchies and based on supernatural revelation to open-sourced religion established by consensus and based on Nature,” McCall leaves room for differing interpretations of divinity. Such comments as evolution being “the music of the spheres” open up different avenues of approach to the natural and spiritual worlds, all of which emphasize the author’s sense that “every creature is kin.” McCall tries hard to be relatable, and he mostly succeeds in serving as an affable guide to the complex mysteries and marvels of existence. For example, note his description of a particularly spectacular solar display: “Like a glimpse of the bone structure of the cosmos, and the bones were made of light.” It’s not all love and light, however, as the author also addresses such topics as climate change, income inequality, and estate taxes, “instituted by our founders to prevent the growth of a wealthy aristocratic class, as in Europe.” There are a few stumbles: The Permian extinction erased more than 90% of the planet’s species, not 50%, and the author’s discussion of intelligent evolution could use further consideration. More often than not, however, McCall hits the nail squarely on the head, and quotations from Thoreau, Whitman, Longfellow, Tecumseh, Welty, Dillard, and others add shading.
Rewarding, ripe wisdom for a life lived with open eyes and a caring soul.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-09600977-2-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Pushcart
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
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 sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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