About book Here If You Need Me: A True Story (2007)
This book is quietly and unassumingly beautiful.In terms of Big Picture, it's a book about divinity and theology - it's about the author's conviction that where the divine shows itself is in ordinary expressions of love between people; in the casserole the neighbors bring over after a death in the family; in the community that searches for a lost resident; in the guy who scritches behind a lamb's ears and makes it bleat with happiness (real guy, real lamb, all in Maine - it's not an allegory).But lest that sound preachy or off-putting, it's worth saying that this is all embedded within story after story of the Maine Park Ranger service, and their work in Maine's wilder areas, finding the lost and the suicidal and the disturbed, treating the living and the dead with respect, protecting wildlife and snagging the guy who's drunkenly taking too many fish from the river. It's wound about Breaustrup's own life story, her efforts to get through seminary after her husband dies, the hilarious trials and tribulations of raising four children who are all - in the book's beginning - under the age of fourteen. It's a meditation on grief and grace, laughter and hardship, death and life. It's beautifully quiet - I felt as if the whole world hushed while I read it.Braestrup is a Unitarian Universalist, so her perspective on God and on life is very reassuringly not fundamentalist, or even particularly Christian. Her idea of God is in the hands that pull a child from the ice, or the middle-of-the-night dedication of the rangers as they pour out of their homes and through the state to begin a search for a missing soul in the middle of winter. And this is the moment that made the whole book for me: My children asked me, "Why did Dad die?"I told them, "It was an accident. There are small accidents, like knocking over your milk at the dinner table. And there are large accidents, like the one your Dad was in. No one meant it to happen. It just happened. And his body was too badly damaged in the accident for his soul to stay in it any more, and so he died.God does not spill milk. God did not bash the truck into your father's car. Nowhere in scripture does it say, 'God is car accident,' or 'God is death.' God is justice and kindess, mercy, and always - always - love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for love.Look for love - sounds so simple, but when you think about it, isn't that a pretty transformative way of looking at the world?
I thought this book was pretty full of nothing. On the one hand, anyone is free to write a book, I just wish there was a more selective way to know what books are going to have meat. I listened to the unabridged audio version so I heard how she wanted to tell the story, which in this case, I think made it worse because there isn't much room for imagination. Here are my two takes:The Bad: She's a minister but seems to be a contradicting one. She says she doesn't believe in heaven, that you just die, that's it--yet she tells people that their loved ones have passed on to heaven. So is she deliberately trying to be dishonest or is she just unsure of what she really believes? Probably the latter. I thought her beliefs uninspiring and depressing including Christ just sort of being a prophet. I was irritated that she sounded like Christians had a negative connotation and didn't seem to like the idea of her son becoming one hypothetically. I didn't like how she and her children would casually swear occassionally and how she purposely put in the night when her kid was watching a Bruce Willis action movie (probably R) in the background while she studied about Jesus with her other daughter. I think she was trying to show that she wasn't an uptight minister, a cool mom, a casual spiritual leader. She sounded humble in words, but things like these made it seem like she was a bit proud of her unorthodox and lax ways.The good: Anyone who dedicates their lives to service really are to be commended. It might be too picky to try to say her beliefs aren't consistent with each other when I should be glad that she's just chosen to do something good for herself and hopefully for others. I thought it was sweet that she did this on behalf of her husband's dreams. I'm impressed when any kind of single parent manages to take on both roles of mom and dad and keep the family together and seemingly happy.
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Kate Braestrup is a recent widow working for the Maine Warden Service as a chaplain. She goes on search and rescue missions in the lakes and woods of Maine and offers support to the families whose loved ones are lost or missing. It is an interesting insight to what search and rescue people go through, but I found Kate Braestrup's belief in God to be more than a little strange and in fact, I really wonder (and doubt) if she does believe in God at all. Her compassion for the families who lose a lo
—Julie
I don't know quite what to say about this book other than: GOOD. I was trying to explain this to a coworker, and they gave me the "sure, right, uh-huh" look. It hits one of my fiction kinks, what with all the heroic actions undertaken by real people who care about the people they're trying to help. But it's better, because it's real.Within the first thirty pages or so, I had cried at least twice, but had laughed out loud considerably more. She comes across as incredibly genuine; the loss of her husband and her determination to continue with her life was present but was not forced on me. She didn't force a strong narrative, either, which I appreciate in a memoir; there are very few periods in someone's life that can be told mostly sequentially and create a complete story with a defined ending. Her story doesn't have an ending yet, so she doesn't really give it one. Wonderful.She's a quasi-local author, and I'm sure we'll be having her in for a signing at some point. She stopped into the store about a week after the book came out, and checked the bestseller list. She was so excited to see that she had hit number three!
—Chelsea
Started this book 4/9/11 and I'm on Chapter 4. So far it's a bit morbid and off-beat, but it is holding my interest.4/24/11-It took me a bit to finish this book just because I needed to be in the mood to read it. Otherwise, it is a quick read. It is not a 'sun-shiny' read. It is about Ms. Braestrup losing her husband, becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister and becoming a Maine Warden chaplain. She is called to the scene of search & rescues. A child lost in the Maine woods, a couple who goes off a waterfall, a child trapped under the ice, and more. She is called out with the search & rescue team to be of comfort to the families whose loved one is missing or in danger. She is also there to help the search & rescue wardens along. I usually read more 'sun-shiny' books. I had found a small review of this in a magazine and had put it on my TBR (to-be-read) list. It was eye opening and gave me a new appreciation for people who do this kind of work.
—Elle
