Customer Reviews

Practicing Presence: The Spirituality of Caring in Everyday Life

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I'm a big fan of Kerry Walters's books. They're brainy without being dry or scholarly, and he always tells a good story and makes me think because he's unconventional. So when I picked up this latest one, I figured I'd be surprised. But I was more surprised than I thought I'd be. I expected a kind of practical, how-to manual. What I got was something much better, a reflection on how to care for self, others, and God rooted in what Walters calls "presence." When we cultivate "presence," we make ourselves available with the same generosity God does. I especially liked the Chapter 2, where Walters claims, via Dostoyevky's underground man, that many of us are too afraid to be present to our deepest self. Chapter 3's use of Kurt Vonnegut to talk about "samaritrophia," our refusal to care for others, is super.

The word "care" is thrown around today so often that it doesn't mean much anymore. But Kerry Walter's book offers a lovely, beautiful discussion that helps us take the word seriously again. According to him, caring is more than just an emotion or a set of behavior. It's the process by which we become complete humans in touch with one another and God. This is a timely message--that a full human isn't necessarily somebody whose rich or real smart or famous or powerful, but someone who knows how to care. Wonder if we'll ever quite get it?

Like the other reviewer said, this definately isn't a how-to guidebook. But it gives a theology of caring that every professional care-giver, and every ordinary human being, ought to think about. The section on learning how to care about your true self is simply brilliant, and the way Walters weaves in the nunc dimmitas story from scripture (Song of Simeon) is clever and insightful. A very good read. and it's the first time anybody's been able to explain Martin Heidegger in language I can understand! :))

One of the main points in this little gem of a book is that care-giving isn't just for professional care-givers but instead is a requirement for anybody who wants to be fully human. Be that as it may, Walters' book is still something that professional therapists, pastoral counselors, nurses, retirement home workers, and anyone in the business of caring will want to read. It gives the reader a deeper appreciation for why caring is so spiritually important, and this is something anybody who cares for a living and faces the occupational hazard of burnout needs under their belt.

Kerry Walters' description of a "spiritual hypochondriac" is so real, compassionate and compelling, it breaks your heart wide open. As he says, "We know full well that the other's me (like our own)seduces him...But we also sense the deep self within him that contains the possibility of holiness, and we cannot but be caringly drawn to it." As Walters notes, "to care is to grieve" and yet "suffering with another person always carries with it the mysterious promise of meaning and intimacy." An inspiring book; the reader comes away with a powerful sense (gift) of the author's own divine Presence.