Four Reviews Coming in PW on Monday, June 30:
-- Publishers Weekly, 6/18/2008
Together and Apart: A Memoir of the Religious Life
Ellen Stephen. Church Publishing, $18 paper (160p) ISBN 978-0-8192-2315-9
In the 1960s Stephen (Order of St. Helena) gave up the trappings of urban life to become an Episcopal nun. Forty years later, she recounts her spiritual journey within the context of an order in transition. While the impact of Vatican II on Catholic religious is well documented, that turbulent era's influence on Anglicans is less familiar. Writing that "coming together and drawing apart are two main characteristics of the religious life," Stephen gives us an unsentimental but loving glimpse of what it's like to make a lifetime commitment to seeking God. The familiar topics of spiritual memoir are embedded in discussions of the purposes and practices of such an unconventional "lifestyle." Balancing prayer and work; keeping the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; and living with companions one did not choose all draw her attention. Characterizing herself as a "truth-seeker," Stephen is clear about some areas of her life and reticent about others (like her five years in an enclosed order). These reflections don't fall into the mainstream of spiritual writing, and are perhaps of most interest to those curious about contemporary life in a women's religious community. (Oct.)
Jewish Dharma: A Guide to the Practice of Judaism and Zen
Brenda Shoshanna. Da Capo, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-1-60094-043-0
Raised as an Orthodox Jew in Borough Park, Brooklyn, Shoshanna always struggled with the structure of not only her religion but her lifestyle. When a teacher exposed her to Zen in high school, she found happiness, then confusion, and then guilt. After a lifetime of studying Zen and returning in fits and starts to a devout Jewish observance, she has found a way to balance the seeming contradictions of a religion that covets community and devotion to God with one that centers on the individual and the quest for the essential self. The story of her struggle, while interesting—and in some cases, deeply personal—lacks consistency. Despite chapter sections on "practice," there are few tangible prescriptions here, and readers looking for the how-to guide that seems promised in the subtitle may feel cheated. Shoshanna never quite finds the balance in writing for the casual seeker versus one already familiar with both Orthodox Judaism and Buddhism—and who wants, like her, to maintain a deep connection to both traditions. (Sept.)
Stories from the Edge: A Theology of Grief
Greg Garrett. Westminster John Knox, $16.95 paper (154p) ISBN 978-0-664-23204-7
This is not a book about the stages of grief, or the 10 steps to overcoming it. In fact, it's more about suffering in general than bereavement in particular. Garrett (The Gospel According to Hollywood) draws on a summer he spent doing clinical pastoral education—a kind of boot camp for hospital chaplains—to discuss age-old theodicy questions. The book challenges certain myths that American Christians have swallowed about God—e.g., that God is a transactional ATM who is obligated to dispense good things to the faithful, or that it's Satan, not God, who makes rotten things happen. Some of these myths are eloquently debunked, while others—such as Americans' persistent faith in consumerism and their ability to "buy" health and happiness—deserve more ink. Garrett scores points with the powerful stories of the hospital patients he prayed alongside as well as his own autobiographical discussions of dealing with severe depression. Christians who are looking for theologically nuanced ways of thinking about suffering can learn much from this brief book. (Sept.)
Why Faith Matters
David J. Wolpe. HarperOne, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-163334-8
Rabbi Wolpe (Making Loss Matter) joins the throngs of authors responding to the New Atheists with defenses of faith. Yet rather than tense up about atheism, its defenders and their dismissive attitudes about people of faith, Wolpe answers these challenges with such kindness and thoughtfulness that even Christopher Hitchens might find his heart warmed. Wolpe does not make his case for faith by hiding the darkest moments of Western traditions. Rather, he shines a light on religions' deepest scars—for instance, spending a good deal of time discussing the relationship between religion and violence—while at the same time showing how religions have also (almost) always been a force of good in the world. (Take Christianity's extraordinary response to the tsunami in Indonesia, Wolpe notes.) With gentle, wonderfully engaging prose, Wolpe scrolls through history and shows how faith traditions don't offer easy, simplistic answers for the intellectually weak, as the New Atheists imply. More often than not, religion sparks believers to ask even more difficult questions. (Sept.)
A Starred Review Coming in PW on Monday, June 30:
The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and its Meaning
Peter Trachtenberg. Little, Brown, $23.99 (464p) ISBN 978-0-316-15879-4
Trachtenberg (Seven Tattoos) wryly observes: "Everybody suffers, but Americans have the peculiar delusion that they're exempt from suffering." He shared in this denial until a friend died of cancer, and then he began to ask questions. "Most of these are unanswerable," he admits: Why me? How do I endure? What is just? What does my suffering say about me? about God? And what do I owe those who suffer? This book is "a layman's response" to unimaginable anguish, a collection of powerful stories rather than a philosophical treatise. Writing movingly about victims and survivors of natural disasters, war, genocide, domestic violence, addiction, illness, suicide and injustice, he deftly intermingles their stories with observations from religion, philosophy and literature. Not everyone will want to face this much misery, and Trachtenberg offers no easy solutions. His book, however, like Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, succeeds because it asks the right questions, calls on the experience of articulate witnesses, and—through skillful narrative and trenchant observation—beguiles the reader into facing heartbreaking reality. (Aug. 27)
You Saw It Here First: Two Original RBL Reviews
Ireland's Saint: The Essential Biography of St. Patrick
J.B. Bury, edited by Jon M. Sweeney. Paraclete, $21.95 (208p) ISBN 978-1-55725-557-0
Editor-writer Sweeney gives Bury's 1905 biography of the legendary St. Patrick a greater contemporary context in this meticulously researched and presented work. An Irish historian, expert on the Greek and Roman empires and a Protestant, Bury wrote what Sweeney calls the "ideal modern biography" of Patrick, the saint often credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. In his work, Bury concurs with various scholars on certain aspects of Patrick's life, but adds his own details and challenges others with sensitivity to the cult of legend and tradition that has become part of the Patrick story. Sweeney assembles and rearranges material from Bury's original work and incorporates more of Patrick's own words, from his Confession and Letter against Coroticus. Sweeney's light edits to Bury's text clarify exactly what Patrick did in Ireland, noting that although he did convert some pagan kingdoms, he also was responsible for organizing Christians who were already there and connecting the island with the church of the Roman Empire. Readers with a scholarly interest in Patrick and Irish history will find this most appealing. (Sept.)
The Lotus Still Blooms: Sacred Buddhist Teachings for the Western Mind
Joan Gattuso. Penguin/Tarcher, $14.95 paper (208p) ISBN 978-1-58542-637-9
The author, a Unity minister and writer who has studied Buddhism with such masters as the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, tries to cram a lot of Buddhism into a basic manual, and the result is confusing and shallow. The multiple lists of fours, fives and eights by which Buddhism has organized its distinctive concepts run together or are under-explained (e.g., four paragraphs on compassion). The prose is pedestrian ("By acknowledging the full spectrum of our human experiences, we take the crucial first step toward alleviating our suffering"). This much material needs better organization, including visual cues through boxes, subheads and indents. Exposition in chapters could have followed a pattern to help the reader move through complex schemes. Some material could have been eliminated altogether (e.g., the four factors) to allow more room to explain such fundamentals as the Four Noble Truths. There are better Buddhism 101s available; don't pick this lotus. (Aug. 14)
