A review by mattshervheim
To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O'Donohue

inspiring

3.5

I'm conflicted about this. I was hoping to love it. It seemed right up my alley — O'Donohue even described the act of blessing as "like the discovery of a fresh well" in the "parched deserts of postmodernity," which is exactly the sort of metaphor I find tantalizing.

And I did like a lot of the book. Each blessing is written a loose poetic form and addresses one topic, life event, or challenge. There were a few — "For Eros", "For Love in the Time of Conflict", and "For Belonging" — that I loved.

(Here's a great couplet from "For Love in the Time of Conflict":

Reach out with sure hands
To take the chalice of your love,
And carry it carefully through this echoless waste

Which totally reminds me of that incredible scene in Tarkovsky's Nostalgia, you know, the one with the candle? Now there's an image!)

That's the positive. The negative is that I found O'Donohue's metaphysics... cloyingly optimistic? Disconnected from reality? Vague and platitudinous?

The frustrating thing is that it's his tone, more than his positions, that bothers me. I know that says as much or more about me than it does about O'Donohue. Since I loved his On Being interview about landscapes, maybe I'll just chalk this one up to a poor reader/book match and leave it at that.