Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Rating:
Summary: an interesting dilemma
Review: I reread this book after reading Uberflavn's review. I think I know what he/she is missing. Francis met people where they are. This book meets people where they are. That is its genius. This book brings the prayer into an ordinary life. Maybe it's not doctrinally pure. Leave that to the curia. I want a book that shows me how the prayer can help my struggles in everyday life. This book does so better than any other. If you live in the world and not in a school of doctrinal theology, read this book. Francis would understand.

Rating:
Summary: an interesting dilemma
Review: I reread this book after reading Uberflavn's review. I think I know what he/she is missing. Francis met people where they are. This book meets people where they are. That is its genius. This book brings the prayer into an ordinary life. Maybe it's not doctrinally pure. Leave that to the curia. I want a book that shows me how the prayer can help my struggles in everyday life. This book does so better than any other. If you live in the world and not in a school of doctrinal theology, read this book. Francis would understand.

Rating:
Summary: Not-so-saintly man and St. Francis write a winner.
Review: Kent Nerburn's books are always filled with intelligence and compassion, and "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace" is an excellent example of just how much head and heart can be beautifully installed into 129 pages. Nerburn's reflections on the Prayer of Saint Francis teach us more about ourselves than about the famous saint, and that is probably just fine with Francis.

Nerburn always emphasizes the practical. "I would rather try to manifest my belief in God than to profess it," he writes. In this way, Saint Francis and the self-admitted not-so-saintly Nerburn make a wonderful team. They teach us that we cannot successfully hide from the dark side of our world or of ourselves; that instead we must face even the "most frightening human emotion" --- hatred --- head on. The goal is not to become a saint, thank goodness, but to accept responsibility to do what we can to manifest, and not just profess, our own beliefs.

Congruent with its contents, the physical book itself makes an excellent gift. I keep several copies in my office to give away whenever I may be so moved --- by the spirit of Saint Francis perhaps. (Although I doubt that Francis is involved in book promotion)

Rating:
Summary: Where There Is Drabness ... Beauty
Review: Reviewer: Cory Giacobbe

This is an insightful, eloquent work. I appreciate that Kent Nerburn keeps honoring the mystery of life, crystallized here in his current work, on St. Francis, and his famous prayer.

Simple, powerful subject; simple, powerful book. There's an obscure song version of the prayer, that I was given to sing back in my Catholic all-girls high school. Replayed only in memory now, I've never again heard any singers perform that specific haunting melody and arrangement. It had a "descant" part, which I as high-soprano sang: a glorious flow of nonverbal, spiraling sound, overlapping the second-soprano and alto parts harmonizing on the actual verses, until all of us merged in a pulsating powerful finale. People would weep in hearing it (and I, in singing it). The author's style reminded me of this. He explores the verses in a quiet, clear, down-to-earth fashion, and yet somehow, audible to the "inner" ear, you might "hear" the counterpoint, a high wonderful rejoicing of the soul (at least, per my soul) in pondering chapter after chapter.

Each section focuses on one line of the prayer. My special favorite is the first chapter evoking the music of love that St. Francis embodies.

Kent Nerburn's book stimulated many realizations for me. (As did the books, The Way of St. Francis, by Murray Bodo, and Man With A Song by F. and H. Line).

In reading Mr. Nerburn's book, I saw clearly how the whole theme of St. Francis' life is that of welcoming. The prayer is an act of embracing. It somehow never registered for me until now, that Francis was of my own ancestry, Italian. At a time when there was no unified concept of an "Italy," at a time of warring city-states, Francis opened his arms, roamed, and welcomed. Ironic. In the latter's immediate world, there was little tourist-consciousness, or scenic appreciation. Villagers looked at forests and feared bandits. Looked at mountains and feared ambush, by enemy army forces. Looked at their nearby neighbors and feared espionage.

Yet here, as Mr. Nerburn exquisitely shows, is a man who felt beauty in viewing forests, mountains, people, and who blessed the outdoors. What an extraordinary mind! He went from place to place, fully expecting, with a miraculous faith in goodness, that fellow Italians would open their doors. He somehow knew they would share the little they had, their crust of bread with him -- and they did. (As did citizens of other lands, with him, later on). I really believe Francis was a forerunner of, what would later develop into, a modern Italian sensibility, love, reputation for, hospitality.

As a complement to this book, you might obtain an old film, The Miracle of Marcelino. In that movie, Italian Franciscan monks, in an Hispanic land, and their adopted orphan, a boy, experience a dramatic spiritual occurrence. With references to St. Francis' life at mealtime, and via the nature of the characters themselves, the very spirit of St. Francis, buoyant, magnanimous, subtly pervades this film. It's as if one is seeing St. Francis' prayer, discussed by Mr. Nerburn, take visible shape. I felt I was seeing St. Francis both as a boy, his sweetness, joy, liveliness, and also as the grown monks, open, caring, spiritually attuned.

Per this shimmering jewel of a book, Kent Nerburn, in his own manner, has accomplished the way of hospitality, harmonizing with his subject. The book prompts me to wonder that perhaps St. Francis deserves a whole line -- honoring mystics like him -- inserted into his own prayer: As in, "Where there is sadness, joy" I can imagine hearing, "Where there is drabness ... BEAUTY!"

Rating:
Summary: Kent misses the boat
Review: There's a lot of good content in here, but there's a big problem, as I see it. Specifically, the chapter on the line "Where there is doubt, let me sow faith" is just completely off base. There is no way Francis would have espoused the postmodern universalist nonsense that Mr. Nerburn puts in here. He would never have thought that all religions, whether buddhist, muslim or whatever, lead to the same God. There's no way you can read Francis' writings and come away with that without some seriously revisionist thinking.

In general, the author strays way too far from the Christian Gospel that Francis espoused and epitomized. What Francis was about was pointing to Christ, not just some new age rhetoric about how to live our lives, or some fuzzy feeling about the unknowable God. He pointed to Jesus who is the living hope, and the worship of whom is the chief end and aim of man. So if this is your first encounter with St. Francis, skip this book and read Englebert's or Green's biography instead.

Rating:
Summary: Simple and yet profund helps to a joyful life
Review: This book was excellent! The author speaks so openly and warmly about some very simple truths that we - at least I know I do - take forgranted and therefore often forget about practicing them in my life. I was so impressed by all that Kent said in this small book that I sat down and wrote him to tell him of my gratitude for his efforts in writing the book. It's one of those books that I felt good all over while/after reading it. I recommend this book very, very highly!