A frank, if somewhat overlong, missionary memoir.
Willingham recounts his experiences as a missionary in the Philippines in this religious memoir.
In 2001, the author signed on for two years of missionary work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints without giving it much thought, as he’d been raised in the faith. But by the time he was on his flight abroad, he’d begun to have doubts. He was assigned to promote the Book of Mormon in the Philippines, specifically in the remote valley of Ituy—home to the Igorots, also known as the Cagayanese, who practiced a traditional, pre-colonial way of life and believed in an ancient animist religion. “I was warned about the spirits, aswangs, and duwendes, taught chants to avoid bad luck, and witnessed loving burial practice,” he writes in his introduction, adding that “those traditions, beliefs, and myths became part of my reality.” The author felt as though he’d been banished to the end of the world, but in the faith and folklore of his conversion targets, the young missionary found the beginnings of his own spiritual journey. Willingham writes in clear and often visceral prose as he recounts his fish-out-of-water experiences in the valley, as in this passage, in which he accepts a duck embryo to eat: “Determined, I tipped back the egg and the embryo slid into my mouth. The feathers rubbed against my tongue, and the embryo caught in the back of my throat. I gagged and tried to both swallow it and spit it out at the same time.” In addition to his experiences among the Igorots and the other missionaries, Willingham offers a detailed history of the region, including the experiences of Catholic missionaries who attempted to convert the population there during Spanish colonization. However, the book would have benefited from a stronger edit, as it’s more than 450 pages long, and some of the detail can be tedious. That said, Willingham’s inner journey as a missionary is often compelling, and it may be of interest to others of all faiths on missions in faraway parts of the world.
A frank, if somewhat overlong, missionary memoir.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 9798479006852
Page Count: 471
Publisher: Willinghammer, LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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