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Rating: 
Summary: Spiritual Guidebook to New Parenthood
Review: Every now and then a rare book appears which can change your life. This is one.
Polly Berrien Berends is wise and gentle. She brings lofty or deep spiritual insights to the rubber-meets-the-road issues of daily parenting: how is one to approach fears of childbirth? How should one talk to a toddler? How does one decide which toys to buy?
I had the good fortune to read this book just prior to becoming a parent, and if possible, you should too. It is not a quick or easy read, rather a very meaningful one. Sometimes I had to stop and think after only three or four pages. But this was well worth it.
If you are already a parent, or if you may never become a parent, read this book. Although it addresses parenting issues it is really a book about human-being-hood.
Rating:
Summary: Spiritual Guidebook to New Parenthood
Review: Every now and then a rare book appears which can change your life. This is one. Polly Berrien Berends is wise and gentle. She brings lofty or deep spiritual insights to the rubber-meets-the-road issues of daily parenting: how is one to approach fears of childbirth? How should one talk to a toddler? How does one decide which toys to buy? I had the good fortune to read this book just prior to becoming a parent, and if possible, you should too. It is not a quick or easy read, rather a very meaningful one. Sometimes I had to stop and think after only three or four pages. But this was well worth it. If you are already a parent, or if you may never become a parent, read this book. Although it addresses parenting issues it is really a book about human-being-hood.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: I discovered this at the discount table of a bookstore in Lexington, Kentucky. It does not get old or outdated. How easily this book could have drifted off into self-indulgent Freudian psychobabble, Fundamentalist moralism or New Age narcissism--all of which Alice Miller has warned us against--in the hands of a less gifted writer. The fact that it doesn't at any time in 340-plus pages is nothing short of miraculous. Polly Berends not only challenges one's view of parenting and loving, but also of Christianity and culture and the universe itself, by bringing mysticism back to the modern Christian mind while not alienating those of other (or no particular) faiths. Filled with transcendent prose, quotes of everything from Buddhist sacred text to the New Testament to e.e. cumming poetry, and the writer's own heart (the heart of a proud mother and wife who walks with God), this is a truly beautiful work that made my mind scream what was important about my personal relationship with my son to me, above the distractions of my ego, with virtually every page. Consider yourself the child, and this book will help you raise yourself. And then imagine what kind of real parent you can be while following its lessons. This is the ultimate holiday, Mother/Father's Day or birthday gift for anyone with children, bar none. Beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: I discovered this at the discount table of a bookstore in Lexington, Kentucky. It does not get old or outdated. How easily this book could have drifted off into self-indulgent Freudian psychobabble, Fundamentalist moralism or New Age narcissism--all of which Alice Miller has warned us against--in the hands of a less gifted writer. The fact that it doesn't at any time in 340-plus pages is nothing short of miraculous. Polly Berends not only challenges one's view of parenting and loving, but also of Christianity and culture and the universe itself, by bringing mysticism back to the modern Christian mind while not alienating those of other (or no particular) faiths. Filled with transcendent prose, quotes of everything from Buddhist sacred text to the New Testament to e.e. cumming poetry, and the writer's own heart (the heart of a proud mother and wife who walks with God), this is a truly beautiful work that made my mind scream what was important about my personal relationship with my son to me, above the distractions of my ego, with virtually every page. Consider yourself the child, and this book will help you raise yourself. And then imagine what kind of real parent you can be while following its lessons. This is the ultimate holiday, Mother/Father's Day or birthday gift for anyone with children, bar none. Beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Spiritual Classics of This Century
Review: I had the fortune to begin to read this book 10 years before our twins were born. Whether you are a parent or not Berend's statement of the perennial spiritual wisdom is to be savored and dipped into over and over again. The book is so rich, so moving, so poetic that frequently you will find that you need to stop and reflect on her words after a page or two. This book, along with Berend's unfortunately out-of-print "Coming To Life", is a true spiritual classic.
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