Sunday, August 24, 2003

Book Review-Highly Recommended



I sort of stumbled across this book while I was doing a search of Poor Clare Monasteries after our recent trip to Cleveland, OH a week ago. While we were in Cleveland we stopped in and visited the chapel of a Poor Clare monastery that I was sure was the same place that a Franciscan nun that I knew had once spent a year in. The nun had remarked how these nuns did not wear shoes, lived an incredibly austere life and the one incident I remember above all was that during the Christmas season they took turns being "Mary" holding the plaster Christ in their hands in the chapel manger scene.



Kristin Ohlson's book is not about the monastery we visited but another in Cleveland, one that we must have driven past at least three or four times during our stay but never even noticed. Something that Ohlson who lives in Cleveland says she had done herself before seeing an ad in the Plain Dealer for a Christmas service there several years ago.



This is one of the best books I have read in a long time, and this is no small praise giving the fact that part of my job is reading endless submissions of this genre. I think what makes this book so compelling is the personal faith quest of Kristin Ohlson. Here is a tale that reminded me favorably of a book that she quotes, Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain. Like that tale opened up the richness of Catholicism to a war time generation over fifty years ago, this book could end up having a similar impact on the present generation.



Ohlson's life in many ways mirrors the lives of so many and it why her tale is so compelling. What she encounters behind the grille at the Poor Clare's reminds one of Dorothy on her quest to Oz, yet unlike the Wizard those behind the grille do not pretend or claim to be the "great one", they are mere fellow pilgrims on a journey to a greater Kingdom. But what they do serve as living reminders that there is something greater, some ultimate meaning, something worth giving up everything that pretends to be of value in this life. It is a haunting presence one, felt and whose voice is heard but remains cloistered and out of sight.



The honesty of Ohlson's search is refreshing. In a time where Catholics call themselves Catholic and then pick and choose what they believe, here we find a woman on a genuine faith quest striving to believe. "I believe, Lord, help my unbelief."



I highly recommend this book, it'll make you think more about your own faith, and perhaps your lack of faith. It'll make you thirsty for God and perhaps you'll find yourself wanting to go to your church and pray. Do yourself a favor and read this book and then give it to someone else to read...







No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.