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What We Are in the Light: Essays for Humans
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 11, 2025
Written by one of my favorite professors from Wheaton, this essay collection will benefit anyone seeking to live more thoughtfully and more lovingly. These essays built me up, sobered me, made me laugh, spurred me on, elicited a tear or two, comforted me, and challenged me. This book will change your life for the better. Philosophy as it's meant to be done!
July 17, 2025
This made me want to be a person who is committed to love. It made me stop, pray, and ask my sister if she needed help with dinner, and made me take a walk just so I could look at the sky and be grateful for it. I think that’s a good enough reason for anyone to read this book. After four years of a degree studying literature, I’ve come to the conclusion books don’t mean much if they don’t make you love more.
August 5, 2025
feels antithetical to this collection’s ethos to review it on Goodreads (but hey, Philip, I rated a book; are you proud of me)
August 31, 2025
Great week-off read. Gave me a greater appreciation for being human and now I’m one step closer to throwing my phone in a lake
September 7, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed these collections of essays. They were wonderfully written and honest which drew me in. But the reason I enjoyed them so much is because it made me explore and ask questions about daily living in the Christian life that I have wrestled with and thought about but struggle to put to name. I’m so grateful that Ryan could name those struggles and help me to sit with these big topics and ideas.
January 25, 2026
Ryan Kemp was one of my favorite professors in undergrad. I only took one class of his - but that class was paradigm shifting. Each essay takes a peice/s of literature, mostly regarding existentialism, & fleshes them out using different literary styles. Some of these are in an informal letter/journal format (my favorite), others traditional academic essays. Each of which point to the beauty of Christs love. 4.5 out of 5
July 27, 2025
A wonderful gift from a friend. It’s good to revisit these lessons and be reminded of what made college worthwhile.
July 24, 2025
Is "too short" a valid criticism? What about, "It did not explore topics to the depth I would have liked"? To be fair, Ryan Kemp did not write this book exclusively for me (darn), and I don't think the thirst this book leaves in my tongue is necessarily a negative quality. I believe that this book achieves what it sets out to do, and in that regard is a 5-star book. My 4 stars reflect the goodness and beauty that still reside within, even if I wanted a book that goes deeper
These essays are brief, beautiful vignettes that explore life, God, beauty, and attention in ways that I find much more approachable that what these ideas look like in the world of philosophy. In other words, Kemp makes these big and important ideas relatable and understandable. In fact, I think my "too short" criticism directly stems from my having explored these ideas with Kemp in college. I know we can go deeper, and I want that desperately. Essays like "Quitting the Internet," and "AI and the Struggle to Think Humanly" stand out in particular as times I wish Kemp went deeper, especially since I'm passionate about these topics. But maybe that's for another book.
Other essays were too short because what was there was already so good and I want to spend more time meditating with my guide. "Julian's Terrible Request" and "From the Whirlwind" I believe exemplify the best that this book has to offer: raw emotions in the face of beauty and God. The image of God suffering alongside us is so powerful in the "Julian" essay, but it takes on new life in light of "Whirlwind" and another essay that speaks to Dostoevsky's problem of evil. This leads me to another thing I liked/disliked about they essays: the synergy. Sometimes the answer to one essay is found in another; other times a later essay has ramifications for one that came before. I can't tell if I like or dislike this. The synergy is at times amazing, leading to really profound AHA! moments when you connect what you're reading to something said earlier. I was also frustrated at times when a later essay fixed issues with a former essay, and instead of shouting, "AHA!", I said to myself, "I wish you had said that earlier." But I recognize this as personal; your mileage may vary.
Anyway, back to the praise! In addition to Julian of Norwich, Kemp does a great job in his rendering of The Brothers Karamazov and Moby Dick and makes the issues explored in each book approachable and inspiring, even awakening my personal struggle with Ivan's rebellion. Kemp is also good at making uncited authors accessible. Martin Buber, Simone Weil, and David Foster Wallace come to mind when Kemp addresses attention, presence, and the lack thereof in the present technological age. He even turned me onto Camus in this book! I guess what I'm trying to say is that, far from summarizing, Kemp brings us into the emotions of the book to get a good look at the conflicts within before bringing us back to the real world to see the far-reaching implications.
I have a soft spot for the more vulnerable and personal essays that bookend the collection (and, ironically for this review, are the shortest). I do believe that grounding the philosophical and emotional struggles in real life are the best way to show the significance of the issues at hand. Kemp's struggle with attention and how that affects his daughter Violet is a particularly touching moment.
The only true "negative," if you will, is that I'm not fully on-board with the arguments on display in "Measuring God," but a book (or in this case, essay) that you disagree with is not necessarily a bad book. While Kemp hints at a new way of "understanding" God, I wonder if there can't be a balance of subjective and objective ways of relating to God. And I know full well that balancing opposing realities is a struggle for me, so perhaps I'm projecting my own fears and struggles onto this essay.
My biggest nitpick with the book is the lack of citations for brief references, which is humorous. Kemp wants us to ditch the internet, but then he quotes Whitman and Camus without citation, and I am instantly tempted to google the quotes to find their origins. If you want me to quit, you'll have to give this dog a bone, but I also can't help but wonder if Kemp wanted me to feel that impulse and realize, "Oh, I AM addicted to the internet." Another nitpick is that 2 of the 3 essays that didn't land for me end up being some of the longest in the book (which is ironic because I want the essays to be longer, yet I'm complaining about the longest essays). My star rating is an attempt to quantify that, but it's just a star rating. My lasting impression of this book is that it's a perfect point of first contact for the topics of God, beauty, and attention from a contemporary existentialist perspective, but thanks to having Dr. Kemp as a professor, I'm well past the point of first contact, and what I'm left with is a collection of beautiful essays that remind me of key ideas and leave me thirsty for more. In other words, I can't wait for the next book!
These essays are brief, beautiful vignettes that explore life, God, beauty, and attention in ways that I find much more approachable that what these ideas look like in the world of philosophy. In other words, Kemp makes these big and important ideas relatable and understandable. In fact, I think my "too short" criticism directly stems from my having explored these ideas with Kemp in college. I know we can go deeper, and I want that desperately. Essays like "Quitting the Internet," and "AI and the Struggle to Think Humanly" stand out in particular as times I wish Kemp went deeper, especially since I'm passionate about these topics. But maybe that's for another book.
Other essays were too short because what was there was already so good and I want to spend more time meditating with my guide. "Julian's Terrible Request" and "From the Whirlwind" I believe exemplify the best that this book has to offer: raw emotions in the face of beauty and God. The image of God suffering alongside us is so powerful in the "Julian" essay, but it takes on new life in light of "Whirlwind" and another essay that speaks to Dostoevsky's problem of evil. This leads me to another thing I liked/disliked about they essays: the synergy. Sometimes the answer to one essay is found in another; other times a later essay has ramifications for one that came before. I can't tell if I like or dislike this. The synergy is at times amazing, leading to really profound AHA! moments when you connect what you're reading to something said earlier. I was also frustrated at times when a later essay fixed issues with a former essay, and instead of shouting, "AHA!", I said to myself, "I wish you had said that earlier." But I recognize this as personal; your mileage may vary.
Anyway, back to the praise! In addition to Julian of Norwich, Kemp does a great job in his rendering of The Brothers Karamazov and Moby Dick and makes the issues explored in each book approachable and inspiring, even awakening my personal struggle with Ivan's rebellion. Kemp is also good at making uncited authors accessible. Martin Buber, Simone Weil, and David Foster Wallace come to mind when Kemp addresses attention, presence, and the lack thereof in the present technological age. He even turned me onto Camus in this book! I guess what I'm trying to say is that, far from summarizing, Kemp brings us into the emotions of the book to get a good look at the conflicts within before bringing us back to the real world to see the far-reaching implications.
I have a soft spot for the more vulnerable and personal essays that bookend the collection (and, ironically for this review, are the shortest). I do believe that grounding the philosophical and emotional struggles in real life are the best way to show the significance of the issues at hand. Kemp's struggle with attention and how that affects his daughter Violet is a particularly touching moment.
The only true "negative," if you will, is that I'm not fully on-board with the arguments on display in "Measuring God," but a book (or in this case, essay) that you disagree with is not necessarily a bad book. While Kemp hints at a new way of "understanding" God, I wonder if there can't be a balance of subjective and objective ways of relating to God. And I know full well that balancing opposing realities is a struggle for me, so perhaps I'm projecting my own fears and struggles onto this essay.
My biggest nitpick with the book is the lack of citations for brief references, which is humorous. Kemp wants us to ditch the internet, but then he quotes Whitman and Camus without citation, and I am instantly tempted to google the quotes to find their origins. If you want me to quit, you'll have to give this dog a bone, but I also can't help but wonder if Kemp wanted me to feel that impulse and realize, "Oh, I AM addicted to the internet." Another nitpick is that 2 of the 3 essays that didn't land for me end up being some of the longest in the book (which is ironic because I want the essays to be longer, yet I'm complaining about the longest essays). My star rating is an attempt to quantify that, but it's just a star rating. My lasting impression of this book is that it's a perfect point of first contact for the topics of God, beauty, and attention from a contemporary existentialist perspective, but thanks to having Dr. Kemp as a professor, I'm well past the point of first contact, and what I'm left with is a collection of beautiful essays that remind me of key ideas and leave me thirsty for more. In other words, I can't wait for the next book!
January 12, 2026
The most beautiful, and brilliant, a book that I will read over and over- and give to friends over and over, and talk about over and over- as I pray my own life will build and grow to simply spill over with love in all things. For anyone who wants to read this book, written by a professor I trust deeply, I will send you a copy!
August 23, 2025
What we are in the Light is written by one of my daughter's favorite professors and humans, Ryan Kemp. Kemp has written and published some wonderful thought provoking essays on many topics, from classical literature, AI, parenting and the Internet, to name a view. If you're looking to read a book and pause and reflect, and occasionally shed a tear, pick up this book.
August 28, 2025
A wonderful collection of short essays: the pocket-New testament for the existential philosopher. At the heart of all his inquiry, Kemp demonstrates in the questioning itself what it would look like if we sought to live deeply communal, connected lives. What would we give up? What would we make harder for ourselves so that in the struggle we might become more human?
July 30, 2025
Page-turner
September 13, 2025
The first seven essays are phenomenal, but all are good.
October 9, 2025
Great little philosophy of life essays. The best essays are on his vision of good teaching, Dostoevsky, Melville, and Julian or Norwich, and on attention.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews