The Spiral Staircase : My Climb out of Darkness

Rating:
Summary: Always enlightening -- but ...
Review: Karen Armstrong's work is always serious and thoughtful. However, in this case, she didn't really think hard enough. Her espousal of compassion as a personal religious vehicle to enlightenment is fine. Compassion is an appropriate individual (even societal) response to hunger, illness, disease, poverty, etc. It is insufficient as a response to evil. Perhaps Armstrong believes that human and social evils are all the result of a lack of compassion -- but she doesn't really address the fact that many people have both the will and the ability to simply ignore the Golden Rule and the claims of compassion. Are such people evil? If so, should they benefit from the compassion of others? If so, why? If not, why not?

While I share Armstrong's dislike of religious certainty, I believe our religious beliefs are important -- regardless of what set of beliefs a person holds. Armstrong wants to dismiss "belief" in favor of "practice" -- but beliefs help us to make sense of the things (like real evil) we encounter in the practice of our religion. They can help us answer such questions as those above, even if they remain only beliefs and not proven facts. I would be interested in seeing Armstrong address the question of evil in her next work.

Rating:
Summary: Karen Armstrong's bias?
Review: On p. 281, referring to 1991, Armstrong writes, "the U.S.-led coalition began the air offensive Desert Storm against Iraq."
Armstrong overlooks the fact that this 1991 "offensive" was IN DEFENSE of the country of Kuwait, which had been invaded by Iraq several months earlier.

Rating:
Summary: This is a real genius woman writer!
Review: Reading the other reviews of this "real genius woman writer," moved me to place my own perspective. I first came under the profound influence of Karen Armstrong, seeing the Bill Moyer's Video panel on GENESIS. I have yet to ask Prof Brueggemann, on that panel if he agrees with me. In reading "The Narrow Gate," I also had the same suspicion. On seeing her graphically painted pictures of magically described fainting spells, "The smell of bad eggs, an aura of menace, fractured lights, sickness followed by my slide into unconsciousness." Her fainting spells being ignored as a Catholic nun were put down as her unruly emotions! Not only did they happen at unexpected times but combined with a more positive outlook. It was apparent that her bad news of getting knocked back "even God for whom I had searched so long, was simply a product of a faulty brain, a neurological aberration."

She was diagnosed finally by Dr. Wolfe with a mild case of Epilepsy, "which isn't the end of the world, it is even curable if we get it in time!" After her depressing years as a Catholic nun, she entered a darkness of more struggle with opportunities to continue her English Education at Oxford. During three years of teaching English at Bedford Girls' Academy, she was provided with another unusual experience of caring for Jacob, handsome, young son of Jenifer Hart. He was also a victim of Epilepsy, but his more serious and deeper variety. With his irreligious parents request she took him to the Sunday Blackfriars Mass. Later she participated in his Baptism with assuance of the priest that it would give him the necessity of religious structure of education.

Then came an adventure of writing, photographing, filming of the BBC Documentary, "Paul of Tarsus and Jesus of Nazareth." Months of return to her spiritual foundations became instrumental in helping Karen to re-evaluate her faith in God. She found the presence of God to be immanent in our world, even as "the ground of all being, in the depth of the human psyche."

Whenever I take time to share with another person the profound influence of this genius woman writer, I'm overwhelmed by her last chapter. She had been struggling up the steep hill from the London trolley, carrying a bag of heavy groceries, when suddenly comes the thought, "Why not write the biography of God?" That became a remembrance of some early impression of the spirit. Yet maybe only a slight inspiration from the Spirit of the immanent God." A great genius, woman writer, Retired Chap Fred W Hood

Rating:
Summary: A light in the darkness
Review: The first time I ever read a book by Karen Armstrong, I was recovering from a naive conversion to Catholicism. I had taken instruction and joined up, hoping to find a stronger sense of the sacred in my religious experience than I had known previously. After 3 years of trying my best, I was convinced there was something lacking in me. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO WOMAN was so germane to my disappointment and confusion, I almost felt it was divinely sent. When I finally admitted that Roman Catholicism didn't work for me, I was haunted with doubts that I might be spiritually "wishy-washy" (as one other reviewer chose to characterize Ms. Armstrong), but in spite of that, I knew that sticking with a decision made as a teenager that I had come to see was wrong, was just stupid. I still needed to find my way to a relationship with God. I continued to search for a religious position that I could trust for the next 30 years, sometimes coming upon nuggets of gold, often finding nothing but lead, but always growing more intellectually informed, and less spiritually naive. Having travelled a ways down many different religious roads, I was beginning to despair at where my search for faith was taking me. When I picked up Karen Armstrong's latest book, THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE: My Climb out of Darkness, it felt again like divine intervention. Reading her story made me thing that my own turning and turning was not all in vain but a necessary quest to make find my own truth, rather than settling for someone else's. I believe that many have felt the things that Karen Armstrong has felt in her spiritual quest, but few can articulate quite so well and with quite so much academic and personal resonance as she. This book spoke to me on every page and I know that I am better for having read it. There aren't many reading experiences that inspire me to say that. This book may not speak to everyone. Some may not have struggled on the same path, or even struggled at all. Some may feel that she's headed straight to hell--which I doubt she would characterize in quite the same way they do. But for so many of us, this book is a treasure and a light in the darkness. If I could meet her, I would thank her with all my heart for her journey and for her generosity in sharing it so honestly and so well.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding, worthwhile, best I've read
Review: This book is one of the best I've read in a very long time. Ms. Armstrong's account of her life after leaving the convent and her search for her life's meaning was compelling and beautifully written. I learned so much from her struggle and her courage. Such difficulties could have led many people to suicide, but she toughed it out and never gave up. In the end, her reward and ours was a life lived in study, comtemplation, and sharing her wisdom through her writing. Anyone who has ever grappled with the meaning of religion and life will benefit from reading this book. It reads like a novel and will draw you in as it did me. Thank you Karen Armstrong for this beautiful, heartfelt memoir. I absolutely loved your book.

Rating:
Summary: Around and around
Review: This is a good read. I've tried for years to follow a religious path but it always seemed beyond me. I finally gave up and am a confirmed atheist. But I'm also a confirmed believer in compassion as the only way to live. If compassion is religion, then I'm religious. Ms. Armstrong would say that compassion is religion. This book is funny, charming, frustrating and uplifting -- it's a good read and is worth the trouble. I've read some of her other books but this is the first of her autobiographic works that I have read. I recommend it!

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Summary: Courage,determination and strength
Review: This is one of those books. An autobiography/memoir style of book that shows the deep determination,strength and courage it took to not only live through the ordeals and traumas but to be able to write about them is astounding to say the least. This book reminds me somewhat of "Nghtmares Echo" with its determination and courage to push on through to the other side. It is spiritually awakening like that of "Beauty For ashes"...but no matter what book you compare this too..."The Spiral Staircase" is a must read.

Chrissy Dillard-Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: So enriching, so mature, but Karen, where are your feelings?
Review: This review considers the CD audio. Such a wonderful experience to hear Karen read her own words about her own life. I had read her first autobiography, Through the Narrow Gate, so I found that the first expositions were a bit repetitive, without a clear new insight -though the second book has been written many years later. I love Karen Armstrong, because I can really relate to her yearning for God, to her sufferings emanating from struggling with Catholicism, the world and herself, to her persistance and to the confusion of not knowing if the world is misunderstanding you or if you are simply misunderstanding yourself. Her last chapters are mind-blowing. There is a giant leap to new and enlightening considerations and, in this leap, I feel that Karen has been courageous and admirable. The only regret that I feel is that I would have liked to hear Karen speak more about her intimacies and the feelings that go with them. Very briefly and very superficially does she mention aspects of sexuality and intimate relationships...subjects that are fundamental in the portrait of a human being. This is, after all, an autobiography. The beautifully exposed concluding chapter is, in itself, a reason to want to buy the book, after having heard this audio CD. Comments may be addressed to [e-mail].

Rating:
Summary: a gem of truth in a muddy land
Review: Ths book should be required reading for all those making our foreign policy in this country, for all religious leaders, all religious people, all atheists, and all those who are not sure. It should be required of all those claiming certainty, all those claiming self-satisfaction and all those condemning others for their beliefs. If only ten-percent of our population had reached a level of spiritual maturity near that of Ms. Armstrong's we would have far fewer problems in this world. If just one-third of people ever came to realize, as she did, that our belief-system/religion/spirituality is an unending path, not a fait-accompli, we would be well on our way to a society we could all be proud of, instead of one we just shake our heads at.

Rating:
Summary: Good Intentions Lead To?
Review: To finish the title: NOW HOW DID THAT OLD SAYING GO?

I am sorry to burst the Armstrong bubble. I know many people are enamored by Karen's writings. She is a "feel-good" author, a step up from the likes of Deepak Chopra. Armstrong is the perfect theologian for the modern religious liberal. She tells them what their itching ears long to hear. "It doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you believe." And the religious lemmings follow their leader joyfully to the cliff! Karen indulges herself and her feckle fans: people who seek religiousity without commitment, scholarship without dogma, spirituality without God. If that is what you want or are seeking, fine. Just don't try and pass it off as a rigorous faith. Call it what it is: fence-walking. You can't be agnostic believer. Enough of the vague, self-made theology. Please!!!!!! If you're an atheist or agnostic, fine. Just have the guts to admit it. Don't go around calling yourself a liberal (unorthodox) Christian. If you want a rigorous, orthodox faith, may I suggest you check out Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship," followed by Martin Luther's "Large Catechism".