Review--Here If You Need Me

Here If You Need Me: A True Story

By Kate Braestrup

When Kate Braestrup’s husband, Drew, a police officer, died suddenly in a traffic accident, he had been planning to enter the ministry. After his death, Kate decided to follow his chosen path herself, in his memory.

Planning to become a chaplain serving police officers, she instead found herself as a Unitarian Universalist minister working as a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service. Accompanying them on searches for hikers lost in the Maine forest, comforting relatives while they waited, being there when the worst possible news arrived, Kate discovered depths of strength and beauty in the world, and in herself.

This is a short but powerful book. Beautifully written, it is by turns poetically eloquent and almost brutally straightforward, all tempered by Braestrup’s sharp, sometimes irreverent sense of humor. Her work brings her face-to-face with the best and worst of humanity, and with unanswerable questions about life, death, and God.

Acts of Faith

Acts of Faith

The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation
Eboo Patel

In Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel, a Muslim of Indian heritage, relates his journey from an angry, displaced college student to the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core. Throughout the book, he asks an important question: How do some young people become violent militants for their religion or other beliefs while others choose a more peaceful and productive path of inclusion and understanding?

Patel sees himself as having narrowly missed the path of the violent militant. As he relates in the book, he had more than a passing acquaintance during his college career with militant groups both religious and political. Had the timing been only slightly different, he could easily have walked the path of the terrorist.

Instead, Patel found another path. Inspired by Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, he envisioned an organization where young people of all faiths could work together in cooperation and understanding, while at the same time coming to a deeper, more fulfilling relationship with their own faith. His journey to make the Interfaith Youth Core a reality brought him from the University of Illinois to Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar), and then to the India of his ancestry, where his venture was encouraged by none other than the Dalai Lama. Along the way, he not only brought this unique organization to life, but came to grips with his own identity as an Indian Muslim, deepening his own faith and coming to a greater understanding of those of other faiths.

Patel tells an involving, moving story, pulling few punches. Much of his theory behind IFYC is that young people are starving for meaning and worth, and if that hunger isn’t fed by compassion and love, then it will be filled by those who wish to turn them to beliefs that lead to violence. Church youth groups can fill this need.

Patel also offers much food for thought. How are we failing our children, our faiths, and our future by drawing lines in the sand that label different faiths and beliefs as “other?” The very fact that Patel is Muslim will turn some people away from this book. Those are the very people who should be reading it. His presentation of Islam is worlds away from the vision we receive every day through oversimplified news reports and fear-based judgment of Christian religious organizations. Patel’s organization leads youth to further understanding of each other—reading his book, spending a few hours inside his head, can lead anyone who reads it to further understanding of Patel, Islam, and the necessity of interfaith understanding.

Faith & Fitness
Diet and Exercise for a Better World
by Tom P. Hafer

I found the title and cover of this book to be fairly misleading, or maybe I just developed incorrect expectations. The book has little to do with a particular fitness program or dietary approach, or keeping motivated while trying to achieve fitness, or anything else that the title would seem to imply. Instead it’s more about how your faith should inform your relationship with the world, leading you to eat better because it’s good for your fellow man and will help preserve the environment and reduce poverty throughout the world.

If I sound cynical or skeptical with that description, it’s not so much because the book doesn’t have good things to say. It’s more due to the tone of the book. One post-chapter reflection question involves what you have to think about to make you feel guilty about your abundance. This doesn’t strike me as a very positive way to approach the topic at hand.

The main points of the book include:

• Our current eating habits are detrimental not only to our health but to the state of the worldwide environment (decimation of the rain forests to support cattle ranching, for example)
• Eating locally grown, in-season produce reduces the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and reduces the need for foreign-grown produce
• Fair trade coffee and other goods helps support workers in underdeveloped countries, reducing poverty
• Our sedentary lifestyle runs counter to how our bodies were intended to function, and thus leads to long-term health issues

All of these are, of course, valid points. And the author’s point that we should approach life with the idea of giving to others is well-taken. But something about his overall presentation set me on edge from the very beginning, making much of what he had to say harder to swallow than it should have been.