2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deserves to Become an Instant Classic!, September 11, 2011
This review is from: Judeochristianity: The Meaning and Discovery of Faith (Paperback)
I read this book just before 9/11, when our nation was caught up in a vast collective Angst over what happened ten years ago and how our lives were forever changed by it. I could not believe what a calming effect it had on me. Others must read it to understand this, but it helped me to look beyond the tragic events that often overtake us in the course of our lives and to realize that everything looks almost entirely different from the spiritual perspective of eternal life.
All books are reflections of the persons who wrote them. This one is the expression of a highly unusual, incredibly spiritual man. It sounded so simple at first that I couldn't believe how I was succumbing to its gentle, loving spirit. But by the time I was halfway through, its hold over me was amazing. I felt like a wounded bird taken up and cradled under someone's arm, where I would be safe and could undergo total healing.
If ever a book deserved to become an instant classic, this is the one. It isn't flashy or filled with overwhelming erudition, although it is clearly built on solid learning. It simply flows from the heart of an exceptionally good man as he talks about the most important thing in the world, how to find the kind of love and acceptance that will remove all our fears, even the fear of death itself.
Charles Gourgey is a licensed music therapist who has worked for years with dying people in hospices, singing and playing the hymns and songs that comfort and support them while they go about withdrawing from this earthly existence. We meet some of these people in his book. In exchange for the loving care he extends to them, they provide him with remarkable insights into the meaning of life and death.
Gourgey, who is Jewish, married someone from a Christian background, so that he has naturally had an interest in both faiths. His wife Karen is blind, and he is nearly so. Yet I have never read a book so remarkably clear-sighted or filled with illumination. By Gourgey's title, he intends us to understand that Judaism and Christianity are really one religion, not two. He doesn't compare or contrast them, he merely speaks out of the single tradition they have forged together, and often points out places where it differs from other religious traditions, although always with genuine respect.
He isn't trying to sell anybody anything. He only wants to give his readers something - fresh and cogent insights into the meaning of faith (a process of transformation that is much more than mere belief), the power of love, the joy of commitment, and the hope of eternal life. He never gets hung up on lengthy or abstruse explanations. He merely talks in simple, everyday language until everything becomes crystal clear and the reader says, "This is great! It makes me feel wonderful!"
The world, says Gourgey, is a battleground for RECEIVED faiths, where people fight over things they neither understand nor fully believe. It ought instead to be a place where each of us acquires HIS OR HER OWN faith, irrespective of what we were taught by our elders or a particular church, synagogue, or mosque. For when we become people of true faith, we realize that eternal life is not some vague "pie in the sky by and by," but a unique quality of existence that actually begins to alter our lives now, in this present moment.
I have never read a book more drenched in light, understanding, and love. Its author is a fantastically spiritual person. If I could have only one book to study in addition to the scriptures themselves, I would immediately choose JUDEOCHRISTIANITY. I hope - devoutly - that it will become a bestseller, for it will change every reader's life for the better!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Judeochristianity: The Meaning and Discovery of Faith, January 9, 2012
This review is from: Judeochristianity: The Meaning and Discovery of Faith (Paperback)
If you are struggling with fear this is the book to read. Charles Gourgey is a brilliant psychologist and spiritual teacher. He is a blessing to his hospice patients and to all who know him. Move over Wayne Dywer, Deepak Chopra, etc.
Read this book and you will be on your way toward viewing this world in a new way.
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