Cheng could easily have become sad and bad, but good and happy is her path. These lifeways were her ticket to the high road.
Motivational speaker and poet Cheng offers a heartfelt guide to building the foundations for a good life.
Cheng has had her share of miseries: A crippling case of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which was not only excruciatingly painful but kept her from school and almost sent her into foster care, was followed by the loss of her vision at the age of 17. So if she chooses to live in happiness, then her tools to achieve that state certainly have fashioned one shining example. Cheng is a forceful believer in God Almighty: “God is everything. He is all virtues…He is infinite, total, and all-encompassing.” Well, perhaps not all the time–“He is absent during your every fall”–and she is not the first to appreciate that “He works under mysterious plans.” But readers need not be believers to find the everyday wisdom in her life purposes: to be a good person with good intentions and to enjoy life to its last sensuous, joyous morsel. Her advice is to live moment to moment, guided by a foundation of values and virtues. Writing with verve and conviction, and ever cutting to the chase, she covers the ingredients of the foundation: faith (in God, perhaps, or maybe simply the allegiance to a cause), finding gratitude (or at least an education) in all things, discovering your core value (hers is goodness), loving life and yourself and others, and having hope that things will go right. Who’s to argue with that? As you wend your way to being good, Cheng is adamant about putting your needs first (only when you have cared for yourself can you fruitfully care for others) and being yourself, finding what is important to you, learning to say no, giving yourself a break, kicking back and taking risks. Then she provides working examples of how to handle the negativities that enter life–deaths, physical ailments–moving beyond simply tendering good words.
Cheng could easily have become sad and bad, but good and happy is her path. These lifeways were her ticket to the high road.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-6151-5522-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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