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Homeless and at Home in America: Evidence for the Dignity of the Human Soul in Our Time and Place
Lawler, Peter Augustine
235 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2007
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July 13, 2025
TLDR: As a collection of essays, many of the essays sucked or weren't as relevant. However I still give 5 stars because some were extremely shocking in their perceptiveness and relevance to my life (especially for a book written in 2007, surprising amount of predictions came true) and helped me to find compassion for myself (something I also got from many books recently) and dignity (something I had not found in as many books recently). I really feel like this ideas in this book will de-"ist" people, whatever the "ist" or "ism" people profess to be, and instead to convert people to say "I'm a person and can think and that's cool".
Longer review:
Sometimes while taking a break in the library I will go pick a random book to flip through. Rarely will a book so catch my interest that I have to check it out. This was one of them.
Often in my life I have felt both at home and homeless. Different mascots have pushed me into trying to feel wholly either at home or homeless in America (and the world) and I believed them all, simultaneously, with different sides growing or shrinking with time. However, trying to give space to these differing viewpoints always made me feel uneasy and I began to get the impression that this sense of discord was somehow my fault or that I was doing something wrong to not be able to synthesize my beliefs in a way that felt to me like harmony. Before I totally abandoned one side though I was lucky enough to encounter this collection of essays. As the back cover puts it, “We are all human, imperfect, more complicated and deeper than most of our intellectuals imagine.” Lawler helps the reader see why the experience of feeling both at home and homeless in America is not something to fix, but something to value. It’s a fragile, difficult, but honest way of being in the world. Which strangely (or surprising to me at first) is part of the root of compassion and self-compassion. Learning not to solve problems, not to find ideologies, and to instead sit with and make space for emotions and ideas, can feel out of control for a world where youtube essays, influencers, gurus, Trumps etc claiming to have the answer, the solve, the truth sells better to the fundamental cultural anxiety we are feeling. Yet learning to live and embrace honestly living through a dynamic process means there is no ends to the mean, its inexhaustible really.
Many books are compassionate and rooted in love. I feel like rarely are political, philosophical or religious books so, despite their claims to the contrary (they just want to persuade you their idea is right). This was a book which when it talks about dignity and compassion felt, sounded and was rooted in a way that made me understand it was possible to live with discord.
Longer review:
Sometimes while taking a break in the library I will go pick a random book to flip through. Rarely will a book so catch my interest that I have to check it out. This was one of them.
Often in my life I have felt both at home and homeless. Different mascots have pushed me into trying to feel wholly either at home or homeless in America (and the world) and I believed them all, simultaneously, with different sides growing or shrinking with time. However, trying to give space to these differing viewpoints always made me feel uneasy and I began to get the impression that this sense of discord was somehow my fault or that I was doing something wrong to not be able to synthesize my beliefs in a way that felt to me like harmony. Before I totally abandoned one side though I was lucky enough to encounter this collection of essays. As the back cover puts it, “We are all human, imperfect, more complicated and deeper than most of our intellectuals imagine.” Lawler helps the reader see why the experience of feeling both at home and homeless in America is not something to fix, but something to value. It’s a fragile, difficult, but honest way of being in the world. Which strangely (or surprising to me at first) is part of the root of compassion and self-compassion. Learning not to solve problems, not to find ideologies, and to instead sit with and make space for emotions and ideas, can feel out of control for a world where youtube essays, influencers, gurus, Trumps etc claiming to have the answer, the solve, the truth sells better to the fundamental cultural anxiety we are feeling. Yet learning to live and embrace honestly living through a dynamic process means there is no ends to the mean, its inexhaustible really.
Many books are compassionate and rooted in love. I feel like rarely are political, philosophical or religious books so, despite their claims to the contrary (they just want to persuade you their idea is right). This was a book which when it talks about dignity and compassion felt, sounded and was rooted in a way that made me understand it was possible to live with discord.
Displaying 1 of 1 review