JourneyOnline
Paulist Press, 2009
RRP $19.95
Reviewed by Rev Paul Clark, minister at Burdekin Uniting Church, children’s author and puppeteer.
I received this book just before Christmas.
The predominate word I’ve got for it is ‘nice’.
God goes on Vacation has got nothing to do with Christmas.
It tells the story of a very human God who goes on vacation, because, well quite frankly God needs the rest!
God hopes that while he is on vacation the hoards of people that come pounding on his door will become self sufficient and leave him alone.
The middle of the book tells of all the nice things that God gets up to on holidays, each trying to give a little lesson on God.
I use the term nice to describe this book as for me the book tries to make God nice.
God is he or she depending on the author’s mood, nobody misses out in this story, everything would be happy if everyone would just share and be… nice.
It’s very unconventional from a Christian perspective, but very predictable from a new age perspective.
I don’t think there’s anything new in this book.
The ideas are things that anyone could have made up on their own about ‘god’.
The author tries to be deep but ends up being superficial.
I’m wondering if the truth, depth and profoundness being sort by this author isn’t found in escaping the biblical text as it seems to have done, but by actually going to the biblical text and finding the mystery there.
I can’t help wondering if God goes on Vacation is autobiographical of an obviously gifted author – who’s international list of accomplishments from the blurb are amazing – needing her own holiday and wishing those she ministers to would just become more self-sufficient.
Or maybe I’m writing my own autobiographical feelings into it!
