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Calm Surrender: Walking the Path of Forgiveness
How can individuals live a life of forgiveness in a world so full of injustice and indifference? This haunting question spurred author Kent Nerburn to write Calm Surrender. The book looks at the life of an elderly woman mistreated by the healthcare system, a Native American desperate to keep the memories of the old ways alive, a woman singing softly over the grave of her young son. As the author recounts the experiences of people who have suffered much and asked for little, he takes readers on a moving journey.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
12 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
Kent Nerburn
41 books459 followersI'm a child of the 60's, a son of the north, and a lover of dogs.
Grew up in a crackerbox post-war bungalow outside of Minneapolis with my mother and father, two younger sisters, various dogs and cats, and a neighborhood full of rugrat kids playing outside until called in for the night.
Studied American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Religious Studies and Humanities at Stanford University, received a Ph.D. in Religion and Art in a joint program at Graduate Theological Union and the University of California at Berkeley. Lots of learning, lots of awards. Phi Beta Kappa. Summa cum Laude. Lots of stuff that looks good on paper.
But just as important, an antique restorer's shop in Marburg, Germany; the museums of Florence; a sculpture studio in the back alleys of Pietrasanta, Italy; an Indian reservation in the forests of northern Minnesota; and, perhaps above all, the American road.
Always a watcher, always a wanderer, perhaps too empathetic for my own good, more concerned with the "other" than the "self", always more interested in what people believed than in what they thought. A friend of the ordinary and the life of the streets.
Twenty years as a sculptor -- over-life sized images hand-chiseled from large tree trunks -- efforts to embody emotional and spiritual states in wood. Then, still searching, years helping young people collect memories of the tribal elders on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation in the Minnesota north. Then writing,
always writing, finding a voice and even a calling, helping Native America tell its story.
A marriage, children, a home on a pine-rimmed lake near the Minnesota-Canadian border.
Book after book, seventeen in all, ever seeking the heartbeat of people's belief. Journeys, consolations, the caring observer, always the teacher, always the learner. Ever mindful of the wise counsel of an Ojibwe elder, "Always teach by stories, because stories lodge deep in the heart."
Through grace and good luck, an important trilogy (Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl who Sang to the Buffalo), a film, Minnesota Book Awards, South Dakota book of the year, many "community reads," book sales around the world.
In the end, a reluctant promoter, a quiet worker, a seeker of an authentic American spirituality, more concerned with excellence than quantity. Proud to be referred to as "a guerilla theologian" and honored to be called "the one writer who can respectfully bridge the gap between native and non-Native cultures". But more honored still to hear a twelve-year-old girl at one of my readings whisper to her mom, "He's a really nice man."
At heart, just an ordinary person, grateful to be a father and a husband, more impressed by kindness than by power, doing what I can with the skills that I have to pay my rent for my time on earth. And trying, always trying, to live by Sitting Bull's entreaty: "Come let us put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for our children."
And petting every dog that I can.
Grew up in a crackerbox post-war bungalow outside of Minneapolis with my mother and father, two younger sisters, various dogs and cats, and a neighborhood full of rugrat kids playing outside until called in for the night.
Studied American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Religious Studies and Humanities at Stanford University, received a Ph.D. in Religion and Art in a joint program at Graduate Theological Union and the University of California at Berkeley. Lots of learning, lots of awards. Phi Beta Kappa. Summa cum Laude. Lots of stuff that looks good on paper.
But just as important, an antique restorer's shop in Marburg, Germany; the museums of Florence; a sculpture studio in the back alleys of Pietrasanta, Italy; an Indian reservation in the forests of northern Minnesota; and, perhaps above all, the American road.
Always a watcher, always a wanderer, perhaps too empathetic for my own good, more concerned with the "other" than the "self", always more interested in what people believed than in what they thought. A friend of the ordinary and the life of the streets.
Twenty years as a sculptor -- over-life sized images hand-chiseled from large tree trunks -- efforts to embody emotional and spiritual states in wood. Then, still searching, years helping young people collect memories of the tribal elders on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation in the Minnesota north. Then writing,
always writing, finding a voice and even a calling, helping Native America tell its story.
A marriage, children, a home on a pine-rimmed lake near the Minnesota-Canadian border.
Book after book, seventeen in all, ever seeking the heartbeat of people's belief. Journeys, consolations, the caring observer, always the teacher, always the learner. Ever mindful of the wise counsel of an Ojibwe elder, "Always teach by stories, because stories lodge deep in the heart."
Through grace and good luck, an important trilogy (Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl who Sang to the Buffalo), a film, Minnesota Book Awards, South Dakota book of the year, many "community reads," book sales around the world.
In the end, a reluctant promoter, a quiet worker, a seeker of an authentic American spirituality, more concerned with excellence than quantity. Proud to be referred to as "a guerilla theologian" and honored to be called "the one writer who can respectfully bridge the gap between native and non-Native cultures". But more honored still to hear a twelve-year-old girl at one of my readings whisper to her mom, "He's a really nice man."
At heart, just an ordinary person, grateful to be a father and a husband, more impressed by kindness than by power, doing what I can with the skills that I have to pay my rent for my time on earth. And trying, always trying, to live by Sitting Bull's entreaty: "Come let us put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for our children."
And petting every dog that I can.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 23, 2014
I've read this short, beautiful book twice. The first time not long after a life shattering betrayal that left me stumbling and struggling to move forward. I appreciated it, I very much appreciate all of this author's books, but I didn't read much that spoke to my personal situation. What can I say? My pain had put me in a selfish place. At a friend's suggestion I read the book again. And now I'm wondering how anyone could read this book and not appreciate its universal and beautiful truths. I hope I can live these truths. Especially that forgiveness isn't something we do, it's something we create. I think I can work with this. I think it just might change my life.
April 21, 2018
I loved these stories. Some brought tears to my eyes. Short stories that make you think about how to live and forgive.
April 24, 2015
SPOLIERS
p117 It is not in turning away from anger, or denying my outrage at the wrongs and indignities of life. It is in rising each morning and going forth into the oil spills of life, with buckets and mops and rags of hope, trying to create a better world for our children....But if I act from faith and love, and not from hatred and vengeance, the legacy of my hope, and the memory of my efforts, will pass down to my children...and buoy them with the sense of possibility that I carried in my heart.
p125 I want to embrace this autumn wind. It is so much of what I long to be - warm, calm a little winsome for what we have lost, but full of confidence and hope. It is a wind of forgiveness that carries no bitterness, no anger for the passing of the season, only knowledge that this is how things must be, and a faith, almost to the point of knowing, that warmth will come again....But I cannot embrace a wind; I can only give myself over to it, and let it take me, like a leaf, where it would have me go.
p126 The greatest among us rise in this wind, and cause the rest of us to look upward toward the stars. But we, the ordinary, blown through the brambles of daily frustrations and irritations and grievances against God and man, move a bit, then get tangled again, never rising, never lifting, aware more of the snares that entangle us than the wind that moves us. But the wind is there, like a constant melody and it is ours to hear if only we open our hearts to its song.
p117 It is not in turning away from anger, or denying my outrage at the wrongs and indignities of life. It is in rising each morning and going forth into the oil spills of life, with buckets and mops and rags of hope, trying to create a better world for our children....But if I act from faith and love, and not from hatred and vengeance, the legacy of my hope, and the memory of my efforts, will pass down to my children...and buoy them with the sense of possibility that I carried in my heart.
p125 I want to embrace this autumn wind. It is so much of what I long to be - warm, calm a little winsome for what we have lost, but full of confidence and hope. It is a wind of forgiveness that carries no bitterness, no anger for the passing of the season, only knowledge that this is how things must be, and a faith, almost to the point of knowing, that warmth will come again....But I cannot embrace a wind; I can only give myself over to it, and let it take me, like a leaf, where it would have me go.
p126 The greatest among us rise in this wind, and cause the rest of us to look upward toward the stars. But we, the ordinary, blown through the brambles of daily frustrations and irritations and grievances against God and man, move a bit, then get tangled again, never rising, never lifting, aware more of the snares that entangle us than the wind that moves us. But the wind is there, like a constant melody and it is ours to hear if only we open our hearts to its song.
July 23, 2016
Neither a treatise nor a Hallmark greeting card. I will admit that there are indeed parts of this narrative that verge on the touchy-feely characteristics of our superficial Hallark-esque society's engagement with all things spiritual. However, I think that if the reader concentrates on the essence of Kent Nerburn's message that forgiveness needs to be an intentional act, I think that the stories--despite their occasional floridity--are worthy in depicting the need for forgiveness and forgiving. As a Dakota (Sioux) person, I was especially struck by the chapter "The Message Tree," in which the author looks at the instances of internalized oppression and the ultimate need by the "victim" to become liberated (and liberator) by the intentional act of forgiving. Ultimately, this is a book worth reading and keeping.
August 26, 2012
According to Kent Nerburn, "We must learn to recognize the difference between letting go of hurts and standing up against wrongs." In "Calm Surrender" Kent demonstrates a genuine love for the principle of foregiveness and page after page seemed to come from a place of genuineness, which I surmise is a result of both giving and receiving forgiveness in his life.
At one point he describes forgiveness as "the glue that holds the human family together;" I see evidence of that truth in my own life. Unfortunately, I have seen more than one example where the human race, specifically families, have lost that 'glue' because one party has been unwilling to forgive.
I loved Calm Surrender, I found it a fountain of wisdom, with page after page bubbling with powerful philosophy.
At one point he describes forgiveness as "the glue that holds the human family together;" I see evidence of that truth in my own life. Unfortunately, I have seen more than one example where the human race, specifically families, have lost that 'glue' because one party has been unwilling to forgive.
I loved Calm Surrender, I found it a fountain of wisdom, with page after page bubbling with powerful philosophy.
Read
December 15, 2012What an incredible read, written with so much reality and soul, it's like a stretcher that carries you through the reality of the wrongs but beyond the pitfalls of hate, to a place of healing without making light of the wrongness. What a gift, I would pass them out to eveyone if I could, such a blessing to me...I had to re-read it several more times...my heart and soul just needed more.
February 2, 2008
This small book details how to let yourself forgive yourself and others. It's a very calm and accessible read and worth giving it a shot especially if something large is hanging over you that you are having a hard time letting go of.
October 14, 2009
This is a truly amazing book. The chapters are wonderfully emotional, challenging of mind and transforming of spirit. For anyone that knows they must forgive themselves to move on and grow as an individual: This book is for you.
August 5, 2009
Sincere and not too preachy. Purse-sized. Like it.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews