Reviews

Everything Is Spiritual: Who We Are and What We're Doing Here by Rob Bell

taryndactyl1988's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

shirleytupperfreeman's review against another edition

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It's hard to describe Bell's latest work - it's part memoir, part sermon and part philosophical musings written in a bit of a mind dump style that somehow still works. There aren't chapters - can't imagine there was ever an outline - but he does have some lovely messages about how everything and everyone is connected, everything is spiritual and we are all loved.

abethel's review against another edition

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5.0

I received an advanced digital copy of this book from the publisher.

Rob Bell's writing is thoughtful and engaging. He explores his personal spiritual journey in this book more than in past books. I love the way he talks passionately about science and spirituality and weaves seemingly disconnected topics into a cohesive narrative.

I will definitely be recommending this one to friends and family!

crystalreadsstuff's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.0

danielleroegner's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring mysterious

3.5

Honestly really similar to his other books, and didn’t delve much into what I thought would be covered in this book, so I finished it slightly disappointed. Overall it’s a fine book but was too much about him and his life rather than talking about bringing spirituality into the every day. 

leckey_charms's review against another edition

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inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.5

mstine's review against another edition

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5.0

Probably my favorite read in a very long time. I couldn't put it down except when I had to actually work or be present with people. I felt like I was listening to Rob describe what's been going on inside my head for years. I've never met the man, and yet I feel such a deep kinship with him through his words. Everything is connected indeed.

iancmclaren's review against another edition

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4.0

Probably the most autobiographical of Rob Bell's books, he tells his family and personal story within the grand scope of the ever expanding universe down to a very detailed account of how babies are born. All of it points to the reality that (you guessed it) everything is spiritual.

escherbot's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.5

breenmachine's review against another edition

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3.0

At first the writing felt chaotic and full of run-on thoughts, but I got used to the style. His enthusiasm definitely shows through. I think I would have liked it better if it had chapters or was slightly more organized. His "Zim Zum" book is still my favorite of his.

Some of my highlights:

"There was this massive Christian religious subculture that claimed the president as one of their own, had helped elect and then reelect him, and was relentless and unquestioning in their support of a profoundly unjust war that was going to cause untold suffering for generations. These people claimed they took the Bible seriously, but they had fallen for that ancient seduction we’ve seen again and again. Empire. They were deeply enmeshed, actively propping up the very thing Jesus came to set people free from. In the Bible, that’s not the way of Christ. That’s called anti-Christ."

"I saw how Jesus answered almost every question he’s asked with a question ... What do you think? How do you read it? How do you interpret it? What do you say about it? This is the opposite of brainwashing. This is the opposite of Just believe and don’t ask questions. He keeps inviting people to think critically, to examine, question, doubt, test, struggle. To own it for themselves. I came across this line in the New Testament: Test everything. I love that line. It’s so simple, and yet there’s so much energy in it. The word test there in the original Greek could also be translated to welcome. It’s this idea of welcoming the good wherever you find it, embracing it and celebrating it. It spoke to me of a certain intellectual rigor at the heart of life—you never just accept something because someone told you or someone said it’s true. You test it, you poke, you prod, you see what it does in the world. How it shapes you. What it leads to."

"Endings are often bad. Painful. Awkward. Ugly. Endings can also be good. Have you ever stayed too long somewhere— A job? A relationship? A place? When we stay too long, what could have been a graduation can easily become a divorce. There was a window when it was time to leave, but we stayed, usually because it was comfortable, or familiar, or easy, or there was a guaranteed paycheck, or we were scared of what people would say if we left. And if we stay past that window, often things sour. They turn in on themselves. It gets toxic. We lose our joy. Not all endings are bad. Some are good. And necessary. Nothing is wrong, and yet it’s time to go. For exactly that reason. Because it’s good. This can be a foreign idea if your endings have only ever been bad. Sometimes you have to leave because it’s good."

"And apparently this was all part of it. It was such a gift, to be stripped and humbled like that. Who am I? We know the answer to that question: Who’s asking? That’s what was happening to me. I’d lost so many of the identities I had forged over the years, which was moving me closer and closer to the me behind the me behind the me. To the me who literally didn’t know what to say when people asked me what I did. When so much gets left behind, you discover that you’re fine. You’ve got a little fear, like a fly buzzing around your head, but you’re fine. You’re also free. What a gift."

"Have you ever heard someone talking about the meaning of life and they say, All that matters are relationships? Well, yes. It’s even better than that. Matter is relationships. So when particles bond with particles, and atoms bond with atoms, and molecules bond with molecules, we see something of ourselves there in the earlier stages of the universe. We crave coming together and connecting with others because this is what the entire universe has been doing for billions and billions and billions of years. Connection is an engine of creation."

"The same form that can be liberating and challenging and new and exciting can become over time limiting and stifling and conflicting. A form helps, until it doesn’t. It liberates, until it confines. The problem may not be the form, the problem may be looking to the form to continue to give you what it could only give you for that stage. That chapter. That time. That period of your life."

"This is why when people argue for the existence of God you sometimes get this feeling that they’re actually denying God in the process. Exactly. To try to prove the existence of God is to place God in the same old forms as everything else when God is the name for Being Itself. God is not detached from the world, up there, or above, or somewhere else, that would make God a form like everything else. Poetry does such a better job of naming the divine— you get glimpses, snapshots, presence, lightning bolts, hints, signs of where it’s headed. Because if you freeze it, you’ve just lost its primary essence. When we talk about God, we’re not talking about that which does or does not exist, we’re talking about what the nature of this is. This world, this phenomenon we know to be life, this event we find ourselves in. We’re not trying to prove anything, we’re naming this. God is not a question about what may or may not be up there or above or out there— God is what we’re unquestionably in. And no one is arguing about that. We all agree on this being that we are all experiencing. A verb more than a noun, a direction as much as a beginning."