Kent Nerburn writes, "Forgiveness cannot be a disengaged, pastel emotion. It must be muscular. It requires action. It is called forth in the bloodiest of human circumstances, and needs to stand against the strongest winds of human rage and hate." Calm Surrender takes readers on a moving, poignantly written journey toward such forgiveness. Nerburn recounts the experiences of a woman mistreated by the U.S. healthcare system, a Native American watching the old ways die, and a mother singing over the grave of her young son. He urges readers to maintain a forgiving heart in the midst of a world where cruelty, tragedy, and sadness abound.
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Amazon.com Review
Forgiveness is indeed a hard road. Fortunately, author Kent Nerburn has the grit to face it head on, inspiring forgiveness even as he acknowledges all the human horrors that seem impossible to forgive. Nerburn is not a preacher speaking from the distant pulpit, he is an accessible narrator speaking from life experience with as much honesty, wisdom, and compassion as he can muster. He tells stories of raw, seemingly unforgivable acts--a drunken father diminishing his daughters, the devastating effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, his 90-year-old mother-in-law withering in excruciating pain while bureaucrats deny her medical care, a chained and abused spotted puppy.
Within these stories Nerburn bushwhacks paths of forgiveness. He shows us when forgiveness requires blind faith, when it demands an act of bravery, when it boils down to forgiveness of self, when it requires a search--finding that small beam of light in a bleak and dense jungle of rage and grief. This books reads like a conversation between friends (although it weights heavily toward Christianity) and is especially appropriate for readers who are grappling with rage, despair, and the challenge of forgiveness. --Gail Hudson
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
clear thoughts on a complex topic,
By A Customer
This review is from: Calm Surrender: Walking the Hard Path of Forgiveness (Hardcover)
When I saw that Kent had written a book on forgiveness I was concerned. There are so many books that confuse forgiveness with forgetting and equate forgiveness with turning away from the cruelty in the world. I was hoping that he wouldn't go for such easy answers. Boy, was I right. He didn't disappoint me. He wrote about hard, hard moments in everyday life. He just took me along with him and made me look at the confusion surrounding all our ordinary lives. If he can find a wise way to talk about forgiveness when he sees a woman reading a book to the grave of her dead child, then he can talk to me about forgiveness. And that's just what he did. Buy it. You won't be sorry.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An eloquent and beautiful book,
By Cactus Ed (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Calm Surrender: Walking the Hard Path of Forgiveness (Hardcover)
Forgiveness is perhaps the most difficult thing to actually pull-off in life, but in this book Kent Nerburn has given us several portraits of how it is done. Calm Surrender joins Kent's earlier books of Great Guidance, and together they comprise a wonderful library of wisdom and courage, strength and perserverence. The books are small, compact and beautiful to behold; what they contain is timeless and nearly priceless. May this one - and all of his others - be read far and wide!
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Let Down,
By A Customer
This review is from: Calm Surrender: Walking the Hard Path of Forgiveness (Hardcover)
This book was a real disappointment. The overall point of the book was well recieved and enjoyable but poorly written. Unfortunately, the book came off to often as a very long Hallmark card. There are some very good points, but the overall sound and feel is something like this: "Life is good, but life can be bad. What do we do when life is bad, how do we forgive? Here is a story... You can see, from the story, that life is pretty and forgiveness is like leaf or a stream or like the wind, blah blah blah." That may sound harsh, but I am being honest. I think that there should been more time spent on actual intelligent discussion of forgiveness rather than sappy descriptions of nature and melancholy anecdotes. I guess I just expected more from someone with a Ph.D. The book was 95% fluff and 5% meat. I, personally, would not waste my time.
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