An uplifting, relevant devotional for finding hope in darkness.
A pastor compiles his daily writings to his Brooklyn parishioners during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic in this work.
Though retired from full-time ministry, Gram agreed to serve as the interim pastor of St. John’s Reformed Church in Red Hook. The church’s full-time minister had suffered a medical emergency. Soon, what was supposed to be a brief stint in a waterfront neighborhood turned into a complicated endeavor, as the author dealt with the most tumultuous moments in the church’s history. The New York region was one of the first places in America seriously affected by a wave of Covid-19 infections. As church doors closed and home and hospital visits became impossible, the author shifted to daily meditations written for his parishioners. This timely book features minimally edited versions of those daily devotions written during the pandemic. In nearly 50 pieces, ranging from short paragraphs to lengthy essays, Gram provides readers with inspirational notes. Some of them address the holy season’s transition from a somber Lent to the hope promised by Jesus’ resurrection at Easter. There are also Covid-19 specific messages; for example, the author delivers a reminder that loving one’s neighbor includes staying indoors to limit the spread of the virus. Written just prior to George Floyd’s death, which Gram laments in his introduction, his daily musings sometimes discuss racism, particularly anti-Asian violence and rhetoric. A final essay concludes with the author’s vivid story of overcoming a genetic blood-clotting disorder. After the diagnosis, he became a prolific mountain climber and rode his bicycle from California to New Hampshire at the age of 68. Each devotion follows a predictable pattern of a relevant Scripture reference, a reflective vignette, and a prayer. Gram’s lucid writing style is that of a seasoned and intellectual yet nurturing pastor. Though the author is a mainline Protestant, he intentionally includes other faith traditions in his remarks, from Roman Catholicism to Buddhism. While the heartfelt book ends abruptly without a satisfying narrative conclusion, it will nevertheless be of great use to Christians struggling to make spiritual sense of the Covid-19 pandemic.
An uplifting, relevant devotional for finding hope in darkness.Pub Date: July 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951937-44-7
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Epigraph Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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