NCR Book Club

One woman's encounter with the Haitian people

When Margaret Trost was suddenly widowed at 34 and left with a young son, she never imagined how her grief would entwine her with the people of Haiti and their suffering.

Trost’s search for meaning in the face of spiritual devastation led her from her comfortable American life to a Haitian mission trip in 2000. Trost established a charitable foundation that, prior to the earthquake, was feeding 7,500 meals a week to children in Port-au-Prince. It helped hundreds more to go to school.

PARIS AND HER REMARKABLE WOMEN: A GUIDE
By Lorraine Liscio
Published by the Little Bookroom, $19.95

One of the great joys of traveling the world is discovering the people in it. Two new books put the traveler’s focus on extraordinary individuals.

WE SIDE WITH THE MORNING: DAILY PRAYERS TO THE GOD OF HOPE
By William Cleary
Published by Sorin Books, $15.95

Anyone who has perused current book catalogs from religious publishing houses is aware of the questions surrounding the practice of prayer. Many persons of faith have apparently reassessed their traditional spiritual practices and found them wanting.

In light of a more contemporary worldview and its effects on religious thought, our long-held image of God as a patriarchal tribal deity (or a God “we can pinch”) is no longer credible. Feeling awkward in addressing a God behind “the cloud of unknowing,” many find themselves unsure of how they should pray. “How can we speak to a God who is not a ‘person’ -- a God who may or not be affected by our prayers?”

Put simply: “Does it make sense to pray?” If so, “how do we pray in a way that is true to our changed religious perspectives?”

As a result of this shift in religious imagination, many seem to be simply abandoning word prayers altogether and replacing them with nonverbal contemplation and/or spiritual disciplines found in other cultures.

The Wanderers by Henry A. Garon. Orbis (Maryknoll, N.Y., 2009). 151 pp., $16.

Read together, the books written by Susan R. Holman and Deacon Henry A. Garon and edited by Joseph A. Heim provide a sort of a miniseries on Christian perspectives of homelessness and poverty around the world.

In The Wanderers, Garon has written a refreshingly realistic book about ministering to the homeless of New Orleans. A Catholic deacon, father and husband, he provides short stories about the street people he has met and the experiences he has had while volunteering at Ozanam Inn. The inn is a homeless shelter located near the heart of New Orleans' business section and owned by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

HOPE IN AN AGE OF DESPAIR
By Albert Nolan
Published by Orbis, $18

I’ve read enough of Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., the Dalai Lama, John XXIII, Thich Nhat Hanh, John Paul II, Daniel Berrigan and Thomas Merton to hear the call for personal, national and global conversion to nonviolence.

LIT: A MEMOIR
By Mary Karr
Published by HarperCollins, $25.99

Written with wit and memorable lines, Mary Karr’s Lit offers a searing self-portrait of a woman struggling with the demons inside herself. As she faces down her own dependency on alcohol, her self-doubt and recklessness, she slowly comes to discover the power of prayer and a new relationship with what she calls her H.P., or Higher Power.

A Mended and Broken Heart: The Life and Love of Francis of Assisi
By Wendy Murray
NY: Basic Books, 2008

Like the search for "the historical Jesus," the author of this work set out to find the historical Francis. From the data obtained in her research, she has given us a believable profile of this beloved saint, and it doesn't look like a garden statue.

A HISTORY OF THE POPES: FROM PETER TO THE PRESENT
By John W. O’Malley, SJ
Published by Sheed & Ward, $26.95

This is the subject that most interests John O’Malley: What is a pope’s job? O’Malley, being a good historian -- he is professor of religion at Georgetown University in Washington -- knows that the only way to answer that important question is to look back across the 2,000 or so years of the bishopric of Rome and ask what popes have done.

What they did for much of the time was to look after Rome and its people, provide dignified religious services, build and maintain splendid basilicas to the glory of God, and take care of widows and orphans. In a later generation they also set about making money for themselves and their relatives, and, in some cases at least, for their children.

No post-racial society yet, but if we keep talking, we keep moving forward

RACIAL JUSTICE IN THE AGE OF OBAMA
By Roy L. Brooks
Published by Princeton University Press, $27.95

This thoughtful book arrives at a moment in our national life diametrically opposed to the post- election euphoria of 2008.

The 19th Wife
David Ebershoff
New York: Random House, 2008 and 2009

Instances of polygamy popping up occasionally in the news indicate that its practice is still to be found in isolated cases. In this novel, the author exposes the practice of "plural wives" that formerly operated wholesale among members of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons).

Although a work of fiction, it is based upon their archival materials in Salt Lake City, as well as stories from the press, and the memoir of Ann Eliza Young (Brigham Young's 19th wife) published in 1874. The historical structure is fleshed out by the author's creative imagination.