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Summary: A message for our future...
Review: I just finished this book, it was a difficult book to put down. Once you start reading you just need to know where Joe's aunt is leading him to. From meeting some women and doing a sweat lodge to his travels to Peru to meet with a "witch doctor", and along the way the reader learns a valuable lesson for our time and a need to start conserving our resources, through out our daily lives. A wonderful book that I will recommend to all my friends.
Well done Joe.
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Summary: Balance Point-A place to begin regaining Earth awareness
Review: I think that everyone on the planet should read this book! It is a "good read" with an entertaining plot, but most importantly it gives people a sense of what they can do, in their own paradigms, to help heal the fractures humanity has caused on this planet we call home. It says: Think Globally, Act Locally---Think Locally, Act Globally. And enjoy Life while doing so! I loved the book and am SOOO happy to know that others, like this author, are out there doing their individual bits to help heal our planet. It is the only one we have!
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Summary: read it!
Review: I was skeptical when I started reading Balance Point, but I was absolutely hooked by the time I finished the first chapter. It's a wild tale, with a very serious message, about the author's transcontinental quest for his personal balance point (if he can only figure out what that means!) and $500,000. Along the way he encounters a few sweaty naked women, a whole lot of bees, a witch doctor, and some startling facts about the ecology of the world. Reading Balance Point will give you a new perspective on life, and on your own spiritual place in the Great Mystery.
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Summary: Metaphors for the common man and woman
Review: Joseph C. Jenkins has proven himself to be committed environmental activist and promoter of sustainable living through his previous work, represented by his non-fiction titles "The Slate Roof Bible" and The Humanure Handbook. In his new book, "Balance Point" Mr. Jenkins creates a fictional device to present important and much needed metaphors for our misguided modern society. The author draws on personal experience and insight to present a number of much needed messages to the common man and woman concerning our relationship to our beleaguered planet. Through mystery, adventure and dialogue "Balance Point " delivers a timely and poignant message.
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Summary: A breath of fresh air!
Review: Joseph Jenkin's book is absolutely wonderful! As an environmental educator for over 10 years, reading this book was like a breath of fresh air. The book is written with such creative style that the reader's interest is captured on the very first page. The book is very entertaining, as well as extremely informative. It is perhaps the best environmental book I have ever read. This book allows the reader to be a part of an adventure that has crucial importance for everyone and everything living on this planet. As a Christian, I have struggled for years with the priorities of organized religion. At least from my experiences, the church seems to all but ignore our responsibility of being stewards of God's creation. However, this book challenges the reader to a different way of thinking. For the first time, I am aware of the difference between religion and spirituality. As pointed out in the book, a person can be extremely religious, yet spiritually lost. The "balance point" refers to a balanced awarenesss. It happens when we "realize we're actually a real part of a greater Being and we adjust our consciousness to accomodate a more humble position in the web of life". This book explains in a very clear way the importance of the web of life. The reader is challenged to look beyond ourselves and to realize how everything we do affects everything else. I feel that this book has a very motivational effect on the reader. The publication of this book comes at a much needed time, when political leaders and our society as a whole are in complete denial of the peril of our environment. Reading this book can be a life-changing event. I hope it will be read by many people, who will then pass it on to others. With Christmas just around the corner, I know what everyone on my list is receiving from me!
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Summary: Ego vs. Eco
Review: Mr. Jenkin's latest will make you think! It starts off as a mystery, twists into environmental issues, and finishes with important things to say about anthropocentric religion, experiencial spirituality, and his philosophy of balancing the ego vs. the eco. He hit a nerve with this reviewer in identifying anthropocetricism as the root of our culture's destruction of our living planet. (Anthropocentrism is the erroneous believe that humans are the center of the universe.)The book also finishes with the very real issue of consumer responsibility for the impacts of every purchase. A handy guide is even included to help the reader source 'green' products. The book is successful in challenging most people's religous and philosophical assumptions. My big question after putting it down was "where is the fiction?"
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Summary: Stunning!
Review: Once I started reading Balance Point, I just could not stop until the book was finished. I could not put it down. I can't tell you how inspired I am by this book. It presents major issues with such clarity, most of which people sort through with a mess of jumbled and random thoughts. It is a wonderful motivator. I'm bound to be giving copies of this book out to many people. Joe Jenkins has hit the nail right on the head! Balance Point is so tremendously beautiful. I recommend it to anyone.
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Summary: Came to me at just the right time
Review: Once in a while, a book comes along at just the right time. This is how Balance Point affected me. I had long felt a conflict between the material and the spiritual realities. I'd continuously oscillate between the two, all-or-nothing style. Joseph Jenkins' new book showed me that my conflict was both misplaced and unnecessary. A better approach is to find one's "balance point." Better written than The Celestine Prophecy, the message here is at least as important. Jenkins takes his readers on an entertaining worldwide voyage of personal discovery ... and tells us how to save the planet while we're at it. Fun to read with exotic (but convincing) settings and characters, this excellent first novel is inspiring at the same time. Oh, and for anyone who still needs to know the difference between religion and spirituality, several passages in Chapter 24 define the differences with lucidity.
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Summary: Beautiful and brilliant! A must-read book!
Review: The award-winning author of The Humanure Handbook and The Slate Roof Bible, Joseph Jenkins, has another provocative and well-written book to grab (and hold) your attention: Balance Point, Searching for a Spiritual Link In this novelized book of truths, protagonist Joe Jenkins is sent on an incredible mission by his deceased Great Aunt Lucy's baffling will...an eye-opener of a voyage toward the understanding of an imminent disaster of global proportions. Joe's journey is initiated at a wicca ceremony in a sweat lodge where he is pointed to his first destination, Newfoundland. "We're robbing the earth's resources, particularly the non-renewable ones", Joe learned at a meeting with Sir (Professor) Gaulton of St. Johns College. "...we've become so blinded by our robbing frenzy mentality, a behavior that we've learned to take completely for granted, that we've lost touch with the natural balance of the earth". The quest to learn how to evolve the human psyche takes Joe (and his wife) on a reluctant itinerary to many remote places in both North and South America including the jungles of the Amazon. The message Joe learned is about the balance between careless selfishness in the use of natural resources, and our interaction and interdependence with each other and all of the natural world...a message of survival as well as one of spiritual awakening. As Great Aunt Lucy put it, "The forces of the Ego and Eco have become locked in combat". Balance Point is a timely page-turner that speaks to the most important and immediate problem we face...saving our planet and ourselves. Author and seeker Joseph Jenkins has given us a book that demands thought...and isn't that the definition of a great book? This reviewer thinks so!
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Summary: Funnier than he intended
Review: This reminds me of the morose, self-obsessed poetry I wrote at fourteen. Don't buy it for the "thought"- Jenkins is sophomoric and intellectually underdeveloped. Don't buy it for the writing- Jenkin's dialogue is so bad, it will make you wince. Don't buy it for the... heck, just don't buy it.
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