Customer Reviews

Calm Surrender: Walking the Hard Path of Forgiveness

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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.

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!

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.

I will admit that there are indeed parts of this narrative that verge on the touchy-feely characteristics of our superficial Hallark-esque society's engagement with all things spiritual. However, I think that if the reader concentrates on the essence of Kent Nerburn's message that forgiveness needs to be an intentional act, I think that the stories--despite their occasional floridity--are worthy in depicting the need for forgiveness and forgiving. As a Dakota (Sioux) person, I was especially struck by the chapter "The Message Tree," in which the author looks at the instances of internalized oppression and the ultimate need by the "victim" to become liberated (and liberator) by the intentional act of forgiving. Ultimately, this is a book worth reading and keeping.

This is a good book on forgiveness and how difficult it is at times. I would also recommend the book An Encounter With A Prophet for some powerful ways to achieve forgiveness.