Reviews for Hinds' Feet on High Places

The average rating for Hinds' Feet on High Places based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-05-21 00:00:00 Marsha Mann You don't understand spirituality inside and out by being wide-eyed, innocent and very Much-Afraid. For those attempting to scale the high and forbidding heights of insight, after taking the Hind at His word and following Him, sheer brute stamina as well as steady, unremitting endurance are mandatory. All of these traits come together perfectly, for example, in the life of the great Georg Wilhelm Hegel. But they don't at all meld in Ms Hurnard's work. And the rather fey ungroundedness which sustain this work, howbeit flimsily, doesn't make the final cut of endurance in Faith to one's end, in real life. That takes sheer intellectual fortitude... Now, Hegel was nothing if not strong. And if you read him, he will show you how to achieve full salvation and keep your two feet planted firmly on level ground - rather than fly off into space with the groundlessness that Ms Hurnard evinces here. Hegel shows us salvation is primarily the long-lasting fortitude of endurance in our faith. At the end of his Phenomenology he speaks of the utter crucifixion of the Spirit on the Cross of the Real. That's telling it like it is, though it's anything but palatable to most people nowadays. Hegel was continually tormented - and simultaneously challenged to go further - by the anguish of his intuition of Being eternally colliding with the Nothingness within and around him, and, his students tell us, he developed a terrible stammer - his lectures at the end being delivered in a hoarse and barely audible rasp. Like Sisyphus carrying his boulder eternally uphill. And he died an awful death as a victim of the dread disease, Cholera. But he somehow maintained his fervent Lutheran faith to his last gasp. Hannah Hurnard might have portrayed such a rugged ordeal in her ascent of the peaks, but she can't - since for her Paradise must be all hearts and flowers. In other words, she fingerpaints. Her fiction lacks the feeling of being LIVED - or being authentically human. I really enjoyed this book, but the problem is simply that Hurnard probably can't portray the self-pity of the victimized Much-Afraid ever being conquered through gruelling hard work. Because it probably never was for her. Hegel did it. Simone Weil and Dorothy Day too. Why can't she - and we readers as well? The moral of the story, then, for me, is that the spiritual path takes guts and pain, as well as good intentions. It's true that many converts to religion have been bruised and ill-used, and come to the faith in brokenness... But if we can't learn to check our self-pity at the gate - We may quite simply never make it to the golden peak of the Mountain.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-06-05 00:00:00 Glen Drysdale Almost exactly one year ago, a friend read an excerpt of this book to a group of women. In the portion she read, Much-Afraid (the main character) is promised a new name by The Shepherd. I asked what name she was given, but my friend merely smiled and told me I should read the book myself. From that point on, the book has been in my mental queue, but the time was never right. Then last month, someone mentioned the book, heard I hadn't read it and loaned it to me on the spot. There's something to be said for waiting for the right timing in reading a book. I have no doubt this was the right time for me to read this book. Hinds' Feet on High Places is an allegory. I've found that most allegories, especially Christian ones, are a bit heavy-handed. While that could be said for this book as well, the underlying sweetness of the story more than compensated for it. Hurnard didn't gloss over difficulties in Much-Afraid's journey, which made the entire tale more believable, enjoyable and readable. Speaking of readability, the book is a quick read, but I found myself deliberately pausing after chapters in order to ponder the truths laid out. One such truth was that our greatest enemies on the path to the high places are internal - pride, resentment, bitterness, self-pity and fear. How often do I sabotage my own efforts for one of these reasons? How often do I let fear stop me from trying? Or pride stop me from taking the first step? If you're looking for a book with crisp, clean writing, you should look elsewhere. But if you're looking instead for a book that holds a great many truths, waiting to be pondered, internalized and lived out, Hinds' Feet on High Places is a good one to read. No matter where you are on your journey, I suspect you will see yourself in these pages. I know I am Much-Afraid much of the time and this book left me longing to collect stones of remembrance along the way so that I will have the faith and strength to be given a new name - or live up to the one I already have.