In this most eloquent memoir, Beryl Singleton Bissell debuts a fine literary talent that will not be forgotten and should not be missed. It is with beauty and grace that we are taken on the journey of a young girl who longs to become a nun and, more importantly, desires a real relationship with God through honest faith.
In artful parallel to the canonical hours of the Catholic Church, Beryl's story of striving to be faithful to God takes us to Holy Child School, the Monastery of St. Clare, the beaches of Puerto Rico and the beauty of Italy. She struggles through illness, falls in love, questions her faith and seeks God's will everywhere from her cell at St. Clare to the parish of San Jorge to the Spanish Steps in Rome.
This memoir is not just an amazing story, but one that is told with clarity and humor. At times Bissell references the likes of St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux, but also employs the comic relief of works like The Sensuous Woman by "J". Somehow she manages to be simultaneously delightful and incredibly intense. Bissell's command of the language is worth noting whether she is describing the scenery:
"Positano was all narrow streets and steep alleyways. Large pots of bright geraniums and trailing aspidistra lined stairways leading to pink- and cream-colored houses, and the cobbled streets glowed with a softly burnished salmon-tinted patina."
or detailing a delicious meal:
"I put my teeth around [another quenepa] with the stem still attached and shivered as the thin shell split with a crisp pop. This time the fruit stayed inside. It sat like a transparent egg yolk inside a tiny olive shell. I squished the pod and the fruit leaped again into my mouth."
Her well-crafted memoir intimately portrays the trials - and triumphs - of finding God, true love and your self in things great and small.
Don't pass up this moving story that is sure to fill its readers with faith, hope and love.
337 words
ISBN: 1582433488
Pages: 294
Publisher: Counterpoint Press (March 22, 2006)
Author Website: www.berylsingletonbissell.com
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Comments: 43
Fabulous job!
Thank you for bringing Beryl's book so concisely to a larger audience. Thumbs up seriously for this!
Beryl's book is a remarkable piece of literature - one that I enjoyed immensely and will long remember. You captured the essence of her writing and the article is sure to inspire a great many readers to read her book with great eagerness!
Your review is very detailed, motivating and eloquently written.
I do believe the story will fill its readers with their own kind of "faith" - but doubt that the possible infusion of self-examination will lead them to wage war with other nations.
If you read the book, which was my only hope when I initially wrote the review, you will see that reason and evidence abound in Ms. Bissell's path to action. Personal experiences such as living in Rome, illness, finding one's "self", and more - do not necessarily lend themselves to faith alone, especially blind faith.
You bring up a very interesting point, but another article would likely serve as a better backdrop to the kind of discussion it requires - and deserves.
Faith is such a subjective issue it would be an injustice to this lovely memoir to enter into that kind of debate here. That's not what this book is about. My apologies if I've steered you in the wrong direction!
I share your dismay at how religion and "faith" have been misused to denigrate science and warp our public policy, all to disastrous effect. But let's be precise. You haven't shown that faith per se is invalid. Your quarrel is with the way faith has been cited to justify arrogance, denial, and willful ignorance. But it doesn't have to be this way. Despite recent appearances, faith and reason are not fundamentally incompatible, and many religious believers have no problem giving science its full measure of respect.
Simply put, science properly asks "How?" and religion properly asks "Why?" Each gets into trouble only when it trespasses into the other's territory. Traditional religious views have had to adapt as science and reason have pointed to new truths, but so have science and reason: the 20th Century taught us that there are limits to the power of logical systems (see Gödel), to the amount of evidence we can gather (see Heisenberg), and to what we can verify (as opposed to merely falsify -- see Popper). Science and reason deserve our utmost respect and ought to be the basis of any sound public policy, and yet they cannot insist that they define all of reality. Skepticism has succeeded brilliantly, and yet a true commitment to skepticism must demand that it, too, be questioned. To do any less is to create a different form of idolatry.
Finally, you say evidence should not be ignored. And yet, you have before you, in the form of the book under review, cogent evidence that a person can feel and pursue her religious convictions humbly, questioningly, and with awareness -- in short, in a very un-Bush-like way. You choose to ignore this evidence. Why is that?
however i liked your article
You write with a great flow and entertain your readers
All the best