Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx

by Heidi B. Neumark

This book is a song of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for the people whose courageous witness has transfigured this community-and this pastor. Thanksgiving for the gift of these stories that cry out to be told and retold because in the midst of death they rise to fill the air with life.Breathing Space is the story of a young woman, Heidi Neumark, and the Hispanic and African-American Lutheran church-aptly named Transfiguration-that took a chance calling on a pastor from a starkly different background. Despite living and working in a milieu of overwhelming poverty and violence, Neumark and the congregation encounter even more powerful forces of hope and renewal.This is the story of a church and a community creating space for new life and breath in a place where children suffer the highest asthma rates in the nation. It's also the story of a young woman-working, raising her children, and struggling for spiritual breathing space. Through poignant, intimate stories, Neumark charts her journey alongside her parishioners as pastor, church, and community grow in wisdom and together experience transformation.

Genres: Memoir, Theology, Nonfiction, Spirituality

306 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2003

About the author

Heidi B. Neumark is an author, speaker, and Lutheran pastor in New York City. She is the author of the highly-acclaimed book, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx, which won the 2004 Wilbur Award given by the Religion Communicators Council. She has chapters and sermons in numerous other books and writes regularly for The Christian Century and other journals. Pastor Neumark also serves as the executive director of a shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth. She holds an honorary doctorate of divinity from Muhlenberg College.

Reviews

[Elyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breathing Space is the memoir of Heidi Neumark, a Lutheran minister, who is a pastor in the South Bronx for 19 years. She starts in the mid-1980s as communities are being destroyed from poverty, addiction, asthma, and violence. Over time, she empowers her parishoners to reclaim their neighborhoods. Under her leadership, people recover from addiction, become educated and employed, and secure stable housing. She also helps to create better schools and affordable homes. At the end of her tenure, it is evident that she has made a tremendous difference. What is most impressive is that she remains humble, grateful, and is never patronizing. I am not a Lutheran and not a church-goer, but the religious aspects of this book did not interfere with my enjoyment. I appreciated the way the author merged spirituality with social justice and used it as a way to guide her parishoners. To me, any path that leads to community organizing and positive change should be embraced.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

i originally gave this book four stars and wrote this:
insightful and poignant, this book is a wake-up call for the church to really consider what it means to be poor in spirit... and serve and love those who are so. nevertheless, the book really needs an editor to help the author's focus so that it doesn't take so long to read. there's just story after story but what is the central point or theme? i get it, but it would be great to have an editor help organize this book better.
but now i have to be honest and give it only three stars because i simply cannot finish the book -- i don't want to read it anymore because it really, really, really needs an editor who can help the author focus on developing a point! there are too many stories that run awkwardly into each other without any thing that carries them along or links them. sadly, i doubt i will read the rest of it. i give up.

[Katina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neumark is a gifted writer who wove together personal tales from her ministry in the Bronx with spiritual insight about justice and peace that resonated with me. I liked her honesty and candor and her willingness to tell it like it is. Though I know people who attend and love her current congregation in Manhattan, after reading this, I must say I'm sad for her old church in the Bronx. It sounds like they had a truly vibrant church with her at the helm.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good account from a woman who truly walks the walk of social justice action. Heidi Neumark in this book reminded me of Paul Farmer in Mountains beyond Mountains. South Bronx is closer than Haiti, Neumark is a minister rather than a doctor -- but they are both remarkable people effecting change in the face of great adversity.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It wasn't especially well-written, but it was simple, down to earth, and real.

[Kirk]

There are many insights here. A congregation with no worldly resources relied on their (tentative) shared faith to turn outward and serve a blighted dangerous neighborhood. Amid seemingly overwhelming challenges. with support from several congregations who shared their conviction, Neumark's congregation grew spiritually and grew to participate in several healthy ministries to their community.

While I find the witness inspiring, I find the author's conceptualization frustrating. The text has no timeline and little by way of sustained narrative. Reading as a way to study the congregation's experience is like surveying a landscape through a kaleidoscope.

This issue puzzles me. I know from hearing her preach that Heidi Neumark is very well prepared to make careful arguments and to write plainly. I must be missing the purpose for how this book is written.

[Eva]

like, it does feel vaguely appropriative to say that this book gave me a prolonged "ring of keys" moment about an ostensibly straight woman, but a) i'm a lesbian and i know what a ring of keys moment feels like and i can apply it here if i want to and b) if i didn't call it that, i would have to say that i have a vocation crush on Heidi Neumark, which does actually feel weirder, so, do you feel my heart saying hi, Rev. Neumark?

[Joanne Mcleod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worthy of a Bookclub

This book led to very insightful discussion in our bookclub - several women of mostly Lutheran tradition. But our difference from the Transfiguration congregation and community is our recognition that we very much benefit from privilege. After reading Heidi’s book we would hope and pray we would enter and serve areas like the Bronx - live threatened by Resurrection.

[Stan Blackburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well written memoir that tells the story of the struggle of those who live in the inner city. But Neumark's memoir is scattered and disorganized. There are many interesting vignettes throughout, but they are presented without theme or purpose. I could not get past the first half; it is just too many unrelated stories thrown against the wall -- Most stick but in no logical way.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book shares the tenacity it takes to see change happen. At times I wanted to cry and at other times I rejoiced as Neumark shared her story. I loved that she was relatable, right down to her housekeeping.

[Cristina Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful theological reflection/memoir of a white, female pastors time in the Bronx.

[Patrick Hansel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving, powerful, honest, kind. It has been a blessing to me to read and re-read this.

[Elizabeth Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the past few weeks I've been living in the South Bronx with Heidi Neumark--and loving it. BREATHING SPACE tells the story of personal transformation wrought by church on pastor and communal transformation wrought on a church by this extraordinary leader. Neumark's theology is solid, and inspirational. While at times I wearied of scriptural references, I appreciate what she accomplished with so many Bible passages: A translation of our foundational scriptural stories into a contemporary setting. Neumark breathes life into these old stories, and it's a life that's shockingly redemptive.

What challenges me most reading Neumark's stories is her profound compassion for all of humanity, especially those living in the depths of poverty. Poverty itself doesn't scare me, but many factors associated with it--drug and alcohol addiction, violence, abuse--terrify me. When I encounter people who suffer from them, I turn away. Neumark doesn't. Her faith in resurrection is extraordinary, and likely the key to her ministry's success.

I have two complaints about this book--first, that it needed a strong editing hand (75 fewer pages would have done wonders for strengthening Neumark's message), and second, the tiny typeface was ill-chosen. I almost put the book down because I couldn't read it. Woe to the designer who chooses an unreadable font!

[Steve Johgart · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand how a true white ally works in the world, read this book. If you want to understand privilege, this book is a primer. If you want to feel neighborhood poverty in your heart and mind, this is the place to be. This is not a hopeless book, but it also is not a book filled with false hope. There are stories here of hopeful triumph over adversity, and stories of the tragic triumph of adversity over hope. Neumark balances the two in such a way that the reader never sinks fully into depression that all is hopeless, and never rises to the false hope that everything is changing. Although this book is written by a Lutheran pastor embedded in the South Bronx at the time of 9/11 and just after, and certainly doesn’t shy away from a Christian perspective, I think even non-Christians would find this story moving and transformative. I was most impressed that this isn’t a pastor who drives to her inner city church from the safe white suburbs, but rather moves with her family into the heart of the land that society has abandoned as hopeless and becomes part of it, in all its grit, and struggles with her neighbors through the hopelessness and anger and sorrow that is rightfully part of that world, and finds the light that is never fully extinguished from the human heart. A powerful and very human book.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the book. It took me to a place I will likely never go, the Bronx, and opened my eyes to how far our relatively prosperous and supposedly progressive country has to go in treating fellow human beings with dignity and respect. I think other pastors would have thrown up their hands and left Transfiguration much sooner, but Heidi saw hope in those who others had cast out as being beyond help, and helped them become leaders in this community. Heidi was a part of a ministry that Jesus referred to when he said, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ If there were more of us willing to minister to those on the fringes, we would see more of the kingdom of heaven revealed here on earth, in our own lives and in others.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book! It gets off to a rocky start, sometimes hard to follow in terms of timing--it could use some more careful editing--but then it becomes so endearing, challenging, gripping, exciting. My mom says Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City helped her see gay people as actual, whole people, and I think this book helped me do that with some of the populations Neumark worked with (people who are addicted to drugs, who live in poverty, things like that). After reading this book, I feel much better equipped to treat people with dignity and invest in them no matter what.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew there were Spanish speaking Lutherans. And how did this very Anglo woman fit into the Bronx? This is a very well written memoir about a woman who has faith and the ability to listen to people. That is a miracle. Raising her children in the south Bronx in a community of faith is an act of faith. It's an inspiring book (no, really)...

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The things this congregation accomplished in the South Bronx and the struggles they faced made interesting reading. It was hard to keep the chronology straight because it moved around a lot, but what I will remember are the people and their stories, and how being part of Transfiguration changed their lives and the author's.

[Lori]

This was an assigned book for my Public Ministry 2 class. It read more like poetry than a novel. At times it felt too-close since this was the writings of a pastor in the South Bronx, after the September 11 attacks. But it's been a while since my heart was broken like it was in social-political philosophy class, while learning about systematic oppression and internalized self-hatred.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. If you haven't read it, buy it immediately, take an afternoon off work, and just read. It will make you want to write your own account of ministry. I LOVED it.

[Tobi]

2011 Duke Divinity summer reading

[Cheryl Jurrus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal journey of a special person, woven together with Biblical references, real people, politics, and prayers.

[Darcie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite spiritual autobiography now. Beautiful and challenging! Great sermon illustrations for preachers.