FEAR: A Spiritual Navigation Jo Kadlecek
Shaw, 192 pages, $9.99
There are those who say that if you believe in God, there is nothing you should be afraid of," writes Kadlecek. "But I have found that the fears themselves have helped me believe all the more in God." In this thematic memoir, the author frames her personal history in the motif of fear: fear of relationships, fear of differences, fear of mortality, fear of faith. Through Kadlecek's real-life parables, we experience her journey from sheltered suburban kid to activist urban Christian.
Her metaphor of choice is water, and so she draws from her memories as a child at the deep end of the pool, as a teenager wading in the Pacific Ocean, as a thirtysomething discovering the Great Barrier Reef in a glass-bottom boat.
Kadlecek works to strip her language of the platitudes that are an easy temptation in this type of book. Mostly she succeeds, though some analogies feel a trace overdone. Still, her honesty and humor win the day. Each of her experiences holds a helpful, if not profound, lesson: Being a Christian does not erase life's challenges—or fears—but it does help us approach them with grace and integrity.
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