Customer Reviews

A Tiny Step Away from Deepest Faith: Teenager's Search for Meaning

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4 star:		(1)
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It's worth it. Well worth it.
I'm in my mid-twenties and will be using this book for a study among other 20-something friends.
Yes, one of our obstacles to this decision was the age of the author. Corbman was a teenager when she wrote "A Tiny Step," and a careful reader can tell. However her intelligence, wisdom, education, and insight shine through; the issues she addresses are right on and speak directly to the human condition.
But it is not in spite of her age that I recommend this book, rather because of her age! Corbman speaks a wakeup call into the ears of anyone who thinks the "big questions" are only for "big people." No, they are the questions we all live and die by, no matter our age or stage in life. So I welcome the voice of my younger sister in Christ.
It is true that, in a certain light, this book can at points seem repetitive. But some things bear repeating! By and large Corbman hits these dead on and brings us back to them-- what is life really about? Please tell me again for I often forget. There's a lot to distract us, and perhaps not enough repetition of what we need to focus on.
My only regret is the author's seeming hesitation to reveal the particular details of her path, and of her personal history. I wished for a clearer look at just what she believed and who she was before letting Christ in. Nevertheless this occasional vagueness helps to universalize her story, and brings us in to her struggles as we each recall our own journey alongside the author.
Do not overlook this tiny book; it is too easy for older readers to ignore or dismiss the voices of a teenaged generation. Instead I'm glad to have humbled myself that I could receive what Corbman has to offer. I am grateful for this one teenager's look at life, death, and faith. Her voice counts, and I recommend we all listen.

Meet Marjorie Corbman, a now seventeen year old freshman at College of the Holy Cross, a recently baptized member of the Orthodox Church, the daughter of secular Jews, a young woman whose spiritual quest brought her through Judaism, Wicca, Paganism, and the writitngs of numerous philosophers and mystics into ancient Christianity. It's not often that you meet a poised, thoughtful, eloquent fifteen year old who's writing a book that's about to be published. It's even more rare to find one whose heartfelt love of Truth and seeking after God bring her a depth of insight and wisdom into the contemporary youth culture that rivals that of any of the many self-proclaimed "experts." Yet in her newly released book, this one teenager will challenge your preconcieved notions of pop culture.

Written without a typical plot, this book is not your usual run-of-the-mill story about someone's journey into Orthodoxy. Rather, Corbman offers the reader brief glimpses or snapshots into her life at various points on her faith journey. Each one illumines her wrestling with the divine, her individual struggle to understand life and find ultimate meaning. An excellent read for today's teenagers or a good education for today's parents of teenagers, it also reaches out to the rest of us because of her love affair with Truth.

..that lets you follow a very articulate, thoughtful young girl's search for meaning and spirituality. The teenage author writes beautifully and seems to have a great sense of humor. You realize through reading this book just how beautiful she really is. She loves people and can always see the good in everyone. She is one of the few people who is really at peace and understands her spirituality. Marjorie Corbman tells her story with a rare grace and intelligence. It is so uncommon these days, when most people are busy struggling with their own lives, for someone to look beyond their daily travails to seek a greater meaning to life. She does that through her telling of her spiritual journey and how she found God, how she found Jesus, and how he captivated her. Her writing is exquisite and she tells about her journey with such articulate speech and a knowledge that is way beyond her years. I highly recommend this book.

Corban's book is a stunning portrait of a teenager's search for spirituality and meaning. As a teenager myself, I consider her book to be a treasure, assisting me in my own growth and helping me to realize the universality of the teenage struggle. I have saved a copy of Corban's book so that someday, when I have children of my own, I might have a glimps into their lives, be able to see the world as they see it. EVERYONE must read this book.

Marjorie Corbman has given us a beautifully written, thoughtful account of a young woman's search for spirituality. Her story enlightens without proselytizing. Adult readers will want to share this book with their children. Youthful readers will want to share it with their parents.

Having converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith in my late teens, and having been very involved in teen youth groups, the author's longing for an authentic expression of her heart's deepest longing resonated with me on a variety of levels. She knew that life was about much more than conforming to peer pressure (which isn't unique to the teen years) and that religion is more than conforming to your parents' belief system, or lack thereof. She was honest with her heart's deepest longing to follow wherever it led her, even if it meant changing her mind and going against the crowd. But she is clear that always she was moving closer to God, being drawn lovingly into the Father's embrace, and even in some of her misguided expressions, God was still near to her and waiting for everything to click in place. After all, we are not saved by passing theology exams.

A difference in her journey is that she had to encounter Christ himself, and from that point enter into the Church's fold. This is the essential power of the testimony in my view. At times both funny and disarmingly honest, and always with clarity of expression, Corbman recounts step by step how she passed through atheism and neo-paganism to the Father of Christ and His Bride.

If you want to get the spiritual pulse of America's youth, a generation that distrusts ideologies (unknowingly post-modern), and understand that behind so much materialism there remains a hunger for ultimate truth and love and meaning, read this book!

Enjoy!

"When I was eleven, maybe twelve, during the unhappiest period of my life, I remember being turned speechless by a painting of Christ." Thus starts this amazing little book, a journey of doubt and faith, written by a very mature seventeen-year old who was raised in a Reformed Jewish home but who wanders through and asks questions about atheism, Wicca, and eventually Christianity as it is found in the Orthodox faith.

Rarely have I found such a testimony with the depth I found here, and it is scattered throughout with quotable gems about the questions her generation is asking, and the answers she has found along the way.

Whereas many in my generation felt the need to study our way intellectually into the faith, she says, "Our spirituality isn't that of rational beings, but of drowning souls." That's pretty graphic. She goes on to say, "Because we are in a crisis, theological abstractions and scholastic reasoning seem irrelevant and distant to us; stale, bland, useless. We are convinced that there is a great deal at stake. We are convinced that there must be a greater being than any of us can imagine--either inside us or part of us in the deepest, most unfamiliar parts of our souls."

Her story even reminds me of C.S. Lewis who made a rapid journey from atheism to Christianity. Here Corbman says, "Within time, the only religion I had never considered--had always been repelled from--would become home to me."

It would be tempting to jot down all the memorable quotes I found in this volume. But all I can say is that after I finished reading it, I thought of several people, including youth pastors from various denominations, whom I would like to give it to. This book is a wake up call to my generation that young people are not always asking the same questions about faith we did back in the 1960s and 1970s. We need to affirm those who are truly seeking and we need to see value in what they find along the way.

This is a thoroughly captivating and thought provoking book. The author, whilst takng us on a very moving and personal journey of her own, also forces us to stop and think about our own lives in a way that we rarely do. I enjoyed this book immensely and I would recomend it to anyone; young or old.

...if you're looking for something that details a pilgrimage from unbelief to faith, this is not it. While Ms. Corbmam has all the makings of a talented writer, this book did not strike me in quite the fashion it appears to have other reviewers. The author really does not detail her pilgrimage into the Orthodox faith in any kind of depth or systematic fashion. There is no "story" here, but rather 10 brief pericopes of her observations and perceptions of her life and faith journey. Yes, you get brief bits and pieces of her life, little glimpses into the ephiphanies that pushed her pilgrimage forward, but no thread really ties these pericopes together.

What you get most (and best) in this book is a glimpse into the feelings of a post-modern adolescent raised in North-Eastern liberalism. While modern teens are quite sophisticated in many ways, and Ms. Corbmam certainly is well read, there is still that underlying naivete that is a product of simply too little life experience to properly place all her experiences in context.

Perhaps it was my expectations, but while enjoying this book I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a more coherent story of a young girl's journey into the ancient Orthodox faith. What I got was something a few steps above a MySpace introspective analysis of the author's feelings regarding life and faith. Not a bad thing, just not what I thought it would be.

I agree with all the reviewers and my conclusion is that I absolutely LOVE this book. Yes, it was not what I expected but I received far more. My expectation was to read a book about a young girl's journey into Orthodoxy--a factual look as to why she chose Eastern Orthodoxy over other religions and Christian denominations, how she has found a home in the ancient Christian Church, etc. I would still love to read about this aspect of her journey and hope she shares it with us some day.

Even though those expectations were not fulfilled, her story, her writing, her thought process, her love for Christ and the Truth, touched my soul. As I tried to read passages of this book to friends, I could never get through them without crying. Her insight into teen angst is sobering. It pains me to know what our children are going through and what emptiness they face without Christ by their side.

Any parent who is struggling to reach what seems like apathetic children, any teenagers confused by the world, any person reading with an open mind and heart willing to throw aside all the cultural programing we've undergone, will find this book moving, enlightening and perhaps life-changing.