Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "If you come upon Transfiguration Lutheran Church on the corner of East 156th Street and Prospect Avenue in the South Bronx, the first thing you'll..." (more)
Key Phrases: space for grace, planned shrinkage, rain stick, South Bronx, New York, Puerto Rican (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1984, when Neumark became pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church, the South Bronx was groaning under decades of neglect. A 1976 HUD policy called "planned shrinkage" had radically reduced city services, including hospitals and schools, and only people too poor to move elsewhere remained in this area of sewage treatment plants and torched apartment buildings. For 19 years Neumark lived and worked among addicts, pushers, prostitutes, people with AIDS, abused women and children and gang members, without abandoning hope: "I am drawn to a different vision-the walls rebuilt, the land reclaimed, the people who rise up like grass improbably breaking through slabs of stone." A gifted storyteller, she portrays people who, despite personal tragedies and minimal resources, band together to build low-income housing, create first-rate schools, restore their church, plant trees and help each other through crises. People like Burnice, who initially came to church to pick up Christmas gifts, intending to trade them for drugs and then kill herself with an overdose; but who kept coming back, got her GED, found a job and is now a leader in church and community. "Some future pillars of the church arrive in ruins," Neumark wryly notes. With its hard-nosed realism and passion for God, this memoir should appeal to people of faith across the political spectrum.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Although a white woman of privilege, Neumark spent nearly 20 years ministering in the South Bronx to an exclusively Hispanic and African American Lutheran congregation that considered a church to be a community, and the church building a place to worship and to meet, sing, laugh, converse, and interact. Surrounded by violence and poverty and threatened by urban renewal, Transfiguration Lutheran Church under pastor Neumark survived and, perhaps miraculously, thrived. Neumark visited homes and walked the streets to meet the church's neighbors; talked with community leaders, shopkeepers, and street-corner misfits; recruited neighborhood kids and promising artists into an art class that became the cornerstone of an after-school program; initiated Sunday school classes; and sought to heal racial and class divisions that had festered for decades. Her story proves genuinely inspirational as we follow her from despair and frustration to cautious optimism in the face of a still tenuous future. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 286 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (October 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807072567
• ISBN-13: 978-0807072561
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #303,214 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sacred space, February 18, 2004

By	FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Heidi Neumark was pastor for many years at the Transfiguration Lutheran Church, in the south Bronx area of New York City. Her congregation was fairly typical of what any lower-income inner-city parish might be -- Hispanic, African-American, people in need, people experienced in poverty and violence. The title comes physically from the idea that, in the midst of one of the wealthier cities on earth, the children have the highest incidence of asthma in the nation. However, beyond this physical description, the daily stress and strain of inner-city living, with gunshots, drugs, crime, poverty and oppression continually surrounding, makes breathing easy a difficult task.

Neumark recalls some of her difficulties with her own spiritual practices. Drawing on the advice of spiritual masters of the past to incorporate distractions rather than attempting to block them out, she would try to add the stress to her prayer life as a working component -- however, when weapons fire seemed to ricochet every time she went to pray, it became difficult if not impossible.

In the face of all the difficulties, there was hope and renewal at Transfiguration. Neumark shares the stories of many parishioners, as well as her own internal struggles and personal experiences, that show the way the spirit of God is alive and active even in the worst of conditions. Neumark highlights the irony of the situation at times -- in the South Bronx, there is plenty of money for state-of-the-art prisons, and keeping juveniles in the system is big business, but the money for education and real plans for improvement is non-existent. This kind of societal choice in the face of residents can be demoralising, to say the least. And yet, at Transfiguration, there are elements of hope, determination for outreach and care to address the issues that the governmental powers neglect.

Quite often, those helped by the church were not church members themsevles. Transfiguration being an urban church, Neumark was frequently approached by those in need, looking for any available help. Milly, a young woman who suffered from the asthma so many bear in the area, was one such person, whose connections with Neumark and the congregation provided a much-needed space for Milly to turn her life in a positive direction. Like many things in the urban church, change was slow and often painful, but Milly (and many others) relied on the church.

The stories are difficult to read, difficult to understand in a human sense. But the spirit that pervades Neumark's work is a joy to behold. Read with care, and read with prayer.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reading and Inspirational Anecdotes, September 29, 2003

By	marite jones (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

I highly recommend this well written book. The stories are truly inspirational and Heidi Neumark does an excellent job of engaging and poignant story telling.

It is very sad to read about the terrible circumstances that many of the poor residents of the South Bronx have had to endure, but also very amazing and uplifting to read about their perseverance and willingness to keep on trying despite whatever setbacks life threw at them!

Additionally, Heidi intertwines her own life story and reactions to the events that were transpiring - adding extra layers of interest and perspective. Reading about her young son's reactions to the World Trade Center disaster on 9/11 was both unexpected and fascinating.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable book, by an even more remarkable person, August 21, 2004

By	Jon Taylor - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx (Paperback)

I don't know where to begin in describing my admiration. The book is remarkable, blending bible studies and religion with politics, etymology, and common sense in telling compelling, well written stories. But even more than that is what the book shows about Heidi Neumark- her courage, feeling, and remarkable commitment to justice and humanity. Some people are committed to humanity as a nameless, theoretical mass. Her commitment is far more difficult and meaningful since it is to real people, one person at a time. The world is lucky to have someone like her. I wish that the rich and powerful could all be required to read this book.

The Publishers' Weekly review says that the book will "appeal to people of faith across the political spectrum." In fact, as someone at the other end of the faith spectrum, it appealed to me, in both senses of the word "appeal."