Book Review Archive

Radical Amazement: by Judy Cannato

A Sacred Voice Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience by John Neafsey

In the Stillness You Will Know by Barbara Fiand

Out of the Ordinary by Joyce Rupp

Adam by Henri Nouwen

The Art of Discernment by Stefan Kiechle

Sparks of the Divine by Drew Leder

By Syndie Eardly of Something Spiritual

A young man stopped a New Yorker on the street one day and asked, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Legend has it the New Yorker replied, “Practice, practice, practice.”

At the heart of “Sparks of the Divine: Finding Inspiration in Our Everyday World” by Drew Leder one finds this same sentiment attached to the spiritual life. In every moment, we are invited to “practice” spiritual awareness and in so doing, become what we practice all day long.

Leder invites us to take the most mundane aspects of the physical world and of our lives and infuse them with the living breath of the spiritual by focusing on them in meditation to discern what they have to teach us.

In his introduction, Leder points out that the “sheer ordinariness of things is our cataract.” That is, we become glazed over by the repetitiveness of what we see every day and lose our sense of the sacred in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the people we encounter, and the sheer beauty of our world.

Quoting Rabbi David Cooper, Leder says that every particle in our physical universe contains “sparks of holiness.”

“But these sparks remain hidden in our ordinary world,” Leder says. “Our sacred task as human beings is to uncover them, an act of cosmic restoration. This we do through acts of service, prayer, loving kindness and appreciation, whereby we attune to and celebrate the universe. We are here to heal the world by finding sparks of the divine, and in so doing to ourselves be healed.”

Leder notes that most self-help books advocate an inward journey to the psyche to heal what ails us, but Leder advocates instead “going out of your mind” to find healing in the lessons and blessings that surround us. If in the end, as all spiritual traditions tell us, it is not about “me” or the individual ego, but in truth about the connection between all beings and all things of the earth, then finding the divine spark in all things may not only be our pathway to spiritual enlightenment, but the framework for co-creating a world of peace and love in concert with God.

In the pages of his book, Leder provides 100 brief reflections on all of the “ordinary” things of our lives, and invites us to see these wonders with fresh eyes, eyes filled with wonder and enchantment and gratitude for what spiritual lesson each of these things has to impart to us.

At almost the exact center of the book, is an apt reflection on steps, stairs and escalators, and how they reflect our climb to spiritual heights.

“Whatever heights we wish to reach, we’re unlikely to soar there in a paroxysm of ecstasy or by serenely floating above life’s conflicts. No, we climb step by step, a bit forward, a bit upward, our movement barely discernible. A prayer here. An honest talk there. A little meditation. A mumbled confession. We might doubt we are making any spiritual progress at all yet, peering over the side, the view comes to look a bit different. We have a slightly broader perspective on life, a little more distance from the problems that so weighed us down.”

Leder’s entire book is a staircase, inviting us to take one step at a time along the spiritual path by letting the wind open us to new life, or see a tree as a teacher of life, or learning from flowers how to turn towards the light. He uses our senses to make us aware of beauty, joy and creation, and invites our emotions to become our teachers.

In a hundred ways, Leder makes us see that the Kingdom of Heaven really is at hand, if we but take the time to stop and savor the spark of the divine in every moment.

By Syndie Eardly of Something Spiritual

Years ago when I worked at Booksellers in Rocky River, I used to joke that I had read something from every section of the bookstore except the science section, a subject that was the bane of my high school years. I said then that the only thing that could get me to read about science was if I was taken there along a spiritual pathway.

Judy Cannato’s newest venture, “Radical Amazement,” does just that. Cannato weaves the spiritual truths of scripture with the wonders of the universe that science has unfolded for us over the past century.

This is an important book for all who are seeking to understand the relationship between man and flesh, between man and his world, and between man and his fellow man. For many centuries, the created universe was almost seen as the devil itself, our humanness and the lure of the world tripping us up and drawing us away from our relationship with God.

But Cannato sees the world as an awesomely splendid creation in which we are partnering with God to expand outward, and that every idea, thought and action is contributing in marvelous ways to that glorious growth and expansion.

How can this be so? How can our little insignificant thoughts and actions affect the great universe? Like the Internet with its instantaneous connections, our thoughts and actions radiate out messages throughout the network of the entire universe. Those messages can communicate love or hate, trust or fear, freedom or repression. The truth is that we are more powerful and influential than we will ever know because we are intricately connected to everyone and everything in the universe.

This is an awesome power, Cannato points out, and one that Jesus invites us to embrace fully. Christ’s aim for us, Cannato says, is to become free…not free of each other…but free to work within the expanding universe to transcend, together, the chains that we perceive are binding us.

“Living in freedom means that we are sufficiently unfettered by fear to enter into the process of self-transcendence, cooperating with the creative Spirit that asks us to become more than we ever dream or imagine we can be. Living in freedom requires that we recognize the connectedness that is a basic reality of our existence…All we do affects all the other wholes of which we are a part and all the other parts that make us a whole. Living in freedom in a conscious way means that we are always becoming part of a greater whole, trusting that the Creator is continuing to create, not only within us, but all around us.”

Cannato has designed “Radical Amazement” to be a contemplative book, following up each chapter with suggestions for contemplation, questions for a discussion and a prayer. This is a very effective tool for the weighty subject matter of the book. The book definitely invites a contemplative approach, and provides great material for a prayer group or book club that could use the book as a multi-week study program.

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By Syndie Eardly of "Something Spiritual"

There have been many wonderful books written on the subject of personal vocations in recent years, but few have brought together personal calling and social conscience in a way that guides us not only to our own personal mission in life, but to a realization of the importance of that mission in the larger context of society.

In “A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience,” John Neafsey succeeds in weaving the two concepts together through an exploration of both the personal and societal challenges we face in areas such as truth, compassion, suffering and conscience.

In delving first into the process of personal discernment, Neafsey walks some well trodden paths as he discusses the necessity of becoming a listener to our own hearts. He encourages us, especially in Chapter 4, “to live as if the truth were really true”; to find an authentic voice inside of us that may have been buried beneath the avalanche of messages we have received in our lives to act in some other way.

“The false self develops during childhood out of fear that one’s actual emotional reality is unacceptable, out of concerns that one’s parents or family or culture cannot or will not tolerate or accept who one actually is. It feels emotionally dangerous to be oneself….The search for the true self necessarily involves efforts to remember what one’s true feelings once were, or to recognize and feel what they are right now.”

How do we do this? Neafsey delves into the processes of discernment and identifies the challenges to not only successfully tuning into the voice, but the greater challenge to developing a vision that is in tune with the needs of society.

In Chapter 6, Vision: The quest for a worthy dream, Neafsey recounts the vision quest of Native American healer and social activist Leonard Crow Dog, who recalls a visionary experience in which an eagle says to him, “I give you a power, not to use for yourself, but for your people.”

Crow Dog’s vision, Neafsey says, reminds us that seeking a vision for our life is not about us, but about how living true to that vision becomes of benefit to all of humanity.

Neafsey is not timid in his approach to exactly what that means. He calls all of America to task in no uncertain terms on our collective response to the horrifying events of Sept. 11, the war on terror and our foray into Iraq.

“The 9/11 attacks initially called forth a poignant outpouring of good will and solidarity among Americans and from around the world. Not long afterwards, though, a darker meaner spirit seemed to take possession of our country’s political life. The trauma that had brought out the best in us quickly began to bring out the worst…Instead of becoming wiser and better, our country became a selfish and violent bully on the world playground,” Neafsey suggests. “Psychiatrist Robert Jay Litton has coined a new diagnostic term for what is ailing America: ‘superpower syndrome.’”

In this issue as in all issues of injustice, Neafsey challenges us to not only tune into our authentic voice, but to be willing to stand up in the midst of injustice, and with true love and compassion, make sure our voice is clearly heard above the cacophony of a world that would draw us away from our true purpose. In this way, Neafsey says, we will truly be aligning our inner purpose with God’s larger plan for the world.

Neafsey is an easy read and he directs us time and again to dozens of wise voices from Jesus Christ’s own words, to the words of our modern day prophets who have toiled faithfully in the modern era to raise our awareness to the critical need for justice in our age.

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By Syndie Eardly of Something Spiritual

In the opening pages of “In the Stillness You Will Know,” author Barbara Fiand notes the upheaval of our times, the paradigmatic shifts in our perceptions at every level, and the moment in which we find ourselves at an “unparalleled convergence when the great questions of science into the nature of reality and the religious questions into the nature of God are opening up to each other and inviting a common quest.” Dauntlessly, she seeks to explore the intersection of science and religion in our age, but does so in a deeply meditative way.

Fiand takes as her springboard into the book, the passing of her co-religious and soul mate Clare Gebhardt. Delving into Clare’s courage in facing death and her own pain at the loss of her dear friend, she explores the transformative power of love and loss and suffering.

More importantly, she seeks to point us in a direction of transcendence with the idea that all of life is rooted in a God who loves and suffers as well for the purpose of growth, transformation and eventually, a drawing back to himself of all creation.

Where do we as individual human beings fit into this cosmic transformation? What is our responsibility in the process? She emphasizes our total connection to each other, that in fact her own suffering at Clare’s passing was merely an exclamation point to that reality; a microcosm of the macrocosm in which we find ourselves that speaks to the invisible, but massive influence we have on each other and on the movement of the world back into God.

How do we help this process she asks? By being love; by bringing the transformative power of love into every situation. As Fiand insists, we are vastly important in this call to exist and move in God’s creation, but we tend to forget what the nature of the call is all about.

“Who is the Christ whom we remember at the Eucharist, if not, in the deepest sense, what each of us is meant to be: a servant of God’s reign and, therefore, surrendered to God in love of neighbor. The covenant of the Eucharist is the commitment even to the point of death, to God’s cause…The foot washing represents this commitment in a unique way. It is the primary symbol of the essential equality of the Christian covenant community where the leader is one with the community and models the servanthood of all.”

She briefly takes the Catholic Church to task for missing the simplicity of this call in its “excessive emphasis on the ‘how’ of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, around who can preside and who may partake.”

The point is that we are all called to this process. “Life is a natural journey from ego building, from establishing oneself and gaining one’s identity, to ego-transcendence ? the discovery of one’s depth dimension and the finding of one’s self not so much in terms of action and success (doing), as in terms of being (finding one’s vocation in who one is). This journey is never an accomplished fact but an ongoing process of letting go, of dying toward deeper life and greater openness. Its pain is inherent in the creation process itself.”

Fiand notes early on that the book was not intended for a simple “read” but that the complex ideas she presents should be fodder for meditation and discussion. To that end, she concludes each of the six chapters with a series of questions and ideas to mediate on, making this a wonderful book for a book club meeting, or even a six week study, as each of the chapters stand well on their own for discussion.

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By Syndie Eardly of Something Spiritual

If only the practice of discernment were a science ? a formula we could follow step by step to fruition, like following a recipe to bake a cake.

But discernment is a much more hidden process that requires less of a “doing” and focuses more on a way of “being;” a way that involves slowing down and listening; a way that demands that we wake up and pay attention to our lives.

Stefan Kiechle, in his new book The Art of Discernment: Making good decisions in your world of choices, explores the criteria, methods and difficulties of the discernment process.

In a straightforward and easy to read format, Kiechle takes the St. Ignatius Rules for the Discernment of Spirits and attempts to make the important aspects of the rules applicable to contemporary situations.

While discernment is not a science, Kiechle provides some important signposts to assist readers through the process of making choices in life.

“Ignatius teaches us to become ‘indifferent’ when we come face to face with a decision. This strategy encourages us to pay attention to and examine the motions of the heart. If we do that, we will recognize that in some of the motions of our hearts, we are seeking our own personal advantage, while in others we remain selfless, seeking the advantage of others, or even everybody’s,” he writes in the opening chapter.

Kiechle then goes on to explore the three ways of making decisions. The first way is through intuition. Like the lightning bolt that struck Saul, intuition is a kind of immediate divine inspiration. The second way is to pay attention to where our inclinations or emotions are taking us. The third way is the rational approach, a kind of summing up of the pros and cons of each possibly pathway.

Kiechle points out, however, that the best way involves a combination of all three, that as we sit with the pros and cons, we pay attention to our emotional response to those pros and cons, and attempt to get quiet enough to let the Holy Spirit provide a flash of intuition that may well seal the bargain.

Kiechle poses key questions in his section on the criteria for discernment, and this gets into the nitty gritty of discernment. In making a decision we are generally seeking “more.” Which decision will get me “more?” The important thing is to ask, “More what?” Do we want more money, more for ourselves, or in the mode of Ignatian spirituality, are we asking which decision will bring more to the world, more service, more justice, more help to those in need?

Once we understand the criteria of the discernment process, Kiechle describes the methods of discernment, the physical and rational practices that can take us down the pathway to identifying the true desires of our heart.

And finally, the author wraps up the book with an excellent, practical guide called the ten guiding principals of discernment…surely, the closest thing you will get to finding a “recipe” to follow in the discernment process.

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By Syndie Eardly of Something Spiritual

Our prayer life has been traditionally guided by the rote prayers we were taught as children and their beauty and resonance will remain with us throughout our lives. But the deepening of our union with God often emerges most profoundly when we learn to connect to His presence out of the ordinary moments of our lives.

Joyce Rupp carves the path for us in her book “Out of the Ordinary: prayers, poems and reflections for every season.”

Joyce Rupp recounts in the opening chapter that she struggled to find appropriate prayers and reflections in her years of ministry as spiritual leader and retreat director. She often resorted to writing her own reflections or poems to align with the theme of the event she was leading. “Out of the Ordinary” is a compendium of years of writing reflections for a wide variety of events and seasons.

The book contains 125 entries divided into 10 seasonal chapters plus an additional seven topical chapters. The seasons include Advent, All Saints Day, Christmas, Easter, Epiphany, Lent, the New Year, Pentecost, Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day. The topical sections include reflections on birthdays, difficult times, transitions, justice and one on ministry and service. There is also a section of devotionals to Mary and a miscellaneous section.

As we enter yet another election season where the protection of America and her way of life is once more the subject of great debate, Joyce leads our thoughts in her section on Justice away from fear and protectionism to gratitude and awareness of the needs of others:

“While I was deciding which oat bran cereal to eat this morning, you were searching the ground for left over grains. While I was choosing between diet and regular soda, your parched lips were yearning for a sip of clean water. While I complained about the poor service in the gourmet restaurant, you were gratefully eating a bowl of rice. While I watched the evening news on TV, you were being terrorized by a dictatorial government.”

In this way, Joyce Rupp leads us to think in far different ways about our connection to God and to others, and through her powerful words, helps us deepen that connection through prayer and reflection.

The book is primarily a resource book for anyone in ministry who is preparing to lead a prayer group or retreat, but it can also provide anyone with a wealth of personal reflection to enrich your prayer life throughout the year.

Joyce aptly sums up the aim of the book in her opening chapter where she notes, “These prayers are not the ordinary ones we would normally use. By offering them, I hope to re-energize our relationship with the divine, to keep it vibrant and alive through the imagery and various approaches I have suggested. My goal is to revitalize the spiritual blood pulsing through the veins of faith. Creative approaches to prayer can catch our attention and draw us to deeper levels of spiritual growth.”

This is probably the primary source of the treasure to be found in “Out of the Ordinary;” that in being drawn out of our dull routines of prayer, we discover in Joyce Rupp’s beautiful poetry and prose a new way of tapping our deepest connections to God and to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

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“Adam, God’s Beloved” Henri Nouwen, Maryknoll, New York; Orbis Books, 1997

By Syndie Eardly of Something Spiritual

Henri Nouwen is renowned for his inspirational writing, and he does not disappoint in the final book he penned just before his death in 1996.

“Adam, God’s Beloved,” published posthumously in 1997, is a simple allegorical tale of the powerful influence wielded by a profoundly handicapped young man who lived at L’Arche Daybreak community outside of Toronto, Canada.

It is perhaps not an easy story for a person in our demanding, fast-paced world to relate to, because “Adam” is not a story about achievement through intelligence, education, physical prowess or wealth. It is not a story about working harder or faster to attain more. It is a story that calls us to slow down, be present, and appreciate the profound influence of our “being” beyond our “doing.”

“He was a person, who by his very life announced the marvelous mystery of our God: I am precious, beloved, whole and born of God. Adam bore silent witness to this mystery, which has nothing to do with whether or not he could speak, walk, or express himself, whether or not he made money, had a job, was fashionable, famous, married or single. It had to do with his being.”

Nouwen’s insight into the intrinsic value of each human being recalled to mind a famous line from “Tuesday’s With Morrie” by Mitch Albom, when Morrie says, “You know what really gives you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give.”

What we have to give is always enough, though we doubt ourselves and the value of our personhood on a daily basis. In Adam, Nouwen sees what he calls “the way of radical vulnerability,” which he notes was also the way of Jesus.

“I believe that God sent Adam as God sent Jesus, to be an instrument of grace, a source of healing, a cause of new joy…I believe he worked miracles like the miracles of Jesus precisely because he never claimed any of them for himself. He didn’t ask for money, fame or even thanks. In his total powerlessness, Adam was a pure instrument of God’s healing power.”

As Adam was powerless to walk, speak or care for himself, his influence was entirely his mere presence in the lives of the workers at L’Arche and with the visitors, having the most profound effect on those who were his caregivers, as was Nouwen.

“As the weeks and months went by, I grew attached to my one or two hours a day with Adam. They became my quiet hours, the most reflective and intimate time of the day. Indeed, they became like a long prayer time. Adam kept ‘telling’ me in such a quiet way, ‘Just be with me and trust that this is where you have to be…nowhere else.’ I thought of him as a silent, peaceful presence in the center of my life. Sometimes when I was anxious, irritated or frustrated about something that wasn’t happening well enough or fast enough, Adam came to mind and seemed to call me back to the stillness at the eye of the cyclone. The tables were turning. Adam was becoming my teacher, taking me by the hand, walking with me in my confusion through the wilderness of my life.”

From beginning to end, “Adam” by Henri Nouwen challenges every entrenched notion we have about our life, our time here on earth, and where the source of our power lies. It is both challenging and reassuring ? it challenges us to be fully accepting of ourselves and fully present with others in our daily work, and reassures us that we are beloved of God exactly as we are.

“Adam” is a quick, easy and inspiring read and well worth the price of an afternoon’s time.

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