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Summary: Picks Up Where "Anam Cara" Leaves Off
Review: A month ago I moved into my first home. As I made packing arrangements I had to decide which books I wanted to leave unpacked and keep near my side as I went through the transition. I chose one book I had read "Anam Cara" and one title I had yet to read "Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Yearning to Belong."O'Donohue's "Anam Cara" had already brought me tremendous joy and peace, yet a bit of a wake-up call, too. It felt like a good, trusty friend who will always be there whenever the need arises. I'm nearly two-thirds through "Eternal Echoes" and "the friend" is taking me on yet another wonderful journey -- a celebration of home and all that home represents. At least, that's my interpretation. Others, I'm sure, will be touched by other qualities of the work. O'Donohue's writing is wonderful and, in many ways, his prose reminds me of Bruce Chatwin's writing in "On the Black Hill" and some of Chatwin's travel pieces. Except O'Donohue writing is an excellent companion for the travelling soul.
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Summary: Wondrous
Review: A page by page beauty. The prose glows and the wondrous thing about reading John O'Donohue is that he gives you the gift of being yourself. The words are keys, one after another, to such deep and warm places in the heart. A fine, fine book.
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Summary: Resonates
Review: As with John O'Donohue's other works, this resonates with the spirit of the Celtic world. His words are always like poetry and a comfort and joy to read, as well as an inspiration to look at life on a more personal/spiritual basis and less on a neon mechanical level. If you like Mr. O'Donohue's books, I strongly recommend his audio tapes, as he has a wonderful Irish brogue that lends an even more delightful quality to his words
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Summary: O'Donohue on the "crisis of belonging."
Review: ETERNAL ECHOES John O'Donohue The hunger to belong is at the heart of human nature. For when we find the place where we are truly supposed to be, we find ourselves in balance and free to experience the divinity of our world and each other. But what is the way home from the loneliness of this world? On Eternal Echoes, Catholic scholar and author John O'Donohue speaks to the "crisis of belonging," while sharing Celtic insights into the passage from isolation to intimacy, and why each of us must undertake this most challenging of human endeavors. Technology pretends to unite us, O'Donohue begins. But too often the global village is paved with pathways of false satisfaction. There are no neighbors. He escorts us from Ireland's ancient soil into the "secret infinity" we each carry, where we hear the echoes of our greatest yearning: to belong. O'Donohue shows that the eternal values of human life - truth, unity, justice, beauty, and love - grow only when we find sanctuary in family, community, and divine relationship. Compelling and original, Eternal Echoes offers a pilgrimage for our souls and a map to this Irish way home. John O'Donohue is an Irish poet and Catholic scholar. He was awarded a Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the University of Tubingen. His book on the philosophy of Hegel, Person als Vermittlung, was published in Germany in 1993. His other works include Anam Cara; Air: Breath of God; Stone as the Tabernacle of Memory; Water: The Tears of the Earth; and Echoes of Memory - a book of poems.
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Summary: Silver prose as golden spirituality.
Review: I can sympathize with the reviewer who found this book to be "vague, wordy, ambiguous, contradictory, and or no practical help." If you turn to John O'Donohue for a practicum on Celtic spirituality you will be similarly confounded.
All of O'Donohue's books are image-intensive lyrics for the songs of our souls. They are not meant to be discursive or systematic, nor are they in any way beholden to canons of Anglo-Saxon verb-driven prose. Perhaps the best way to appreciate this or any of his books is to sit in your garden with a cup of strong tea, a thick slice of toasted bread with butter or marmalade, and a copy of this book, and take small mouthfuls of each allowing time between to savor and digest.
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Summary: vague and repititious
Review: I can't understand all the fuss about this book. It was vague, wordy, ambiguous, contradictory, and or no practical help. We are told to "anchor our longings" but never told how or what exactly he means by this. I can literaly open any page of this book and wonder what on earth he is talking about because he never gives examples or practical steps. Example: "The visitor is one who belongs somewhere else, but is now here in the world of your belonging." Read on in the paragraph and you get more of the same. I stayed with it to the end assuming that he would surely explain some fundamental truth that we can apply to our lives. He didn't.
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Summary: The book challenges as much as it confirms
Review: I could go on for a long time about the book. Let me just say that in singing its way into my brain, heart and soul with the beauty and resonance of its words, it also challenges me in more ways than can be written down, or should be written down. If you buy it -- you must -- get ready for a real ride of a lifetime.
Rating:
Summary: eternal echoes
Review: I love this book, it touches the heart and soul. It expresses our inner beings like a layman never could. It makes you want to be all you can be ever and forever and forever. I also read Anam Cara and thought very highly of it as well. He knows the human being inside and out.
Rating:
Summary: eternal echoes
Review: I love this book, it touches the heart and soul. It expresses our inner beings like a layman never could. It makes you want to be all you can be ever and forever and forever. I also read Anam Cara and thought very highly of it as well. He knows the human being inside and out.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: I read this book late into the night. John O'Donohue is a wonderful writer with a gift for bringing words of wisdom to all of us. I was struck by his light, his poetic nature and was even inspired to begin writing myself. I would love to know if he is planning a book tour (or book signing) and if so, when and where...
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