Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness

by Gordon C. Stewart, Eric Ringham (Foreword), Wayne G Boulton (Introduction)

Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness echoes the call of the Navajo sage and the psalmist who invited their hearers to stop--""If we keep going this way, we're going to get where we're going""--and be still--""Be still, and know. . . ."" Like pictures in a photo album taken from a unique lens, these essays zoom in on singular moments of time where the world is making headlines, drawing attention to the sin of exceptionalism in its national, racial, religious, cultural, and species manifestations. Informed by Japanese Christian theologian Kosuke Koyama, Elie Wiesel, Wendell Berry, and others, the author invites the reader to slow down, be still, and depart from ""collective madness"" before the Navajo sage is right. Told in the voice familiar to listeners of All Things Considered and Minnesota Public Radio, these poetic essays sometimes feel as familiar as an old family photo album, but the pictures themselves are taken from a thought-provoking angle. ""This wondrous collection of rich snippets would be of interest and value if only for the rich source material that Gordon Stewart quotes from, as it must be an inexhaustible memory and/or file. But the many words he quotes are no more than launching pads for Stewart's expansive imagination and agile mind that take us, over and over, into fresh discernment, new territory, unanticipated demands, and open-ended opportunity. All of that adds up to grace, and Stewart is a daring witness to grace that occupies all of our territory."" --Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary ""These are lovely, powerful, centering essays--messages from and for a fragile but beautiful planet."" --Bill McKibben, Author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet ""As a person who navigates the pleasures and perils of the twenty-first-century campus, having Be Still! at my fingertips will be like having a counselor, a guide, a very present help in these times. This volume touches the pulse of our times with the rare combination of unwavering candor and tender mercy."" --Lucy A. Forster-Smith, Sedgwick Chaplain, Senior Minister in the Memorial Church, Harvard University Gordon C. Stewart's guest commentaries on faith and culture have aired on All Things Considered and in print on MPR, Minnpost.com, and the StarTribune. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he has led ecumenical campus ministries and churches in Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, and Minnesota. He was the first non-lawyer Executive Director of the Legal Rights Center, a nonprofit public defense corporation in Minneapolis.

186 pages, Paperback

Published January 6, 2017

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

if stewart would have written this in the 17th century he would have been held as one of the finest philosophers of america. sadly, it is the 20th century, and this is the writing of a sensitive 10th grader trying to make sense out of junk in the school textbooks. for a rather old man, this is just the navel gazing of an intellectually lazy rich man who likes to see himself as modest.

and the title is wrong. it is not a departure from the collective madness, it is a departure INTO the collective madness. he is a preacher for precisely that madness.

[Rebecca Lennon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again and again the insights contained in these short essays spoke to what is happening today. They pointed me to a greater a new perspective and pointed to God's desires and love for his world and people. I read one or two a day so I had time to reflect on each.