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A review by julessssss
Life's Too Short to Pretend You're Not Religious by David Dark
3.0
I first heard about Dark through an episode of the podcast Sacred Tension called “Overcoming the Faith Cartel” in which he was a guest - I don’t remember much about it, but whatever he said intrigued me enough to buy his book and continue to be excited about it years later.
ok so overall, this book was interesting and I would generally recommend it - it wasn’t life changing tho and I think I expected it to be.
also Dark is Christian and that’s all well and good but I kinda felt like it made up too much of his arguments in the book and found its way into things too much - it didn’t bother me really at first, but I thought it was worth mentioning. It just seemed like those examples were so much more prevalent compared to the ones he used from other cultures and/or “traditional” religions.
my favorite thing about this book however, is the way Dark talks about poetry. It really reminded me of the ways I look at the world sometimes - like the subtle breath of the cold wind on my face or the light coating of ice on the trees. He connected poetry and mindfulness in ways that I hadn’t fully before and it made my heart happy.
Lastly here are some quotes that I wrote down while reading:
“Life’s too short to pretend that we already have what we haven’t, or that we are when we honestly aren’t.” (115)
“Church is a verb, a peopled activity that, in one sense, ends when an institution begins.” - paraphrasing the words of Will Campbell (117)
“it is only by really loving and forgiving others as members of ourselves that we can begin to really love, forgive or cherish ourselves at all.” (137)
“I am because we are.” (141)
“Life’s too short to be lived in a swirl of perceived self-attribution or rather, life can’t begin to be properly perceived at all when we’re in its throes… all those little distancings add up after a while till we’re too debilitatingly detached from reality to meaningfully see ourselves beautifully at all.” (143)
“the culture we call poetry is human seriousness itself. It’s the work of making all things new, redeeming the time and bodying forth newness of life and living and social possibility.” (174)
ok so overall, this book was interesting and I would generally recommend it - it wasn’t life changing tho and I think I expected it to be.
also Dark is Christian and that’s all well and good but I kinda felt like it made up too much of his arguments in the book and found its way into things too much - it didn’t bother me really at first, but I thought it was worth mentioning. It just seemed like those examples were so much more prevalent compared to the ones he used from other cultures and/or “traditional” religions.
my favorite thing about this book however, is the way Dark talks about poetry. It really reminded me of the ways I look at the world sometimes - like the subtle breath of the cold wind on my face or the light coating of ice on the trees. He connected poetry and mindfulness in ways that I hadn’t fully before and it made my heart happy.
Lastly here are some quotes that I wrote down while reading:
“Life’s too short to pretend that we already have what we haven’t, or that we are when we honestly aren’t.” (115)
“Church is a verb, a peopled activity that, in one sense, ends when an institution begins.” - paraphrasing the words of Will Campbell (117)
“it is only by really loving and forgiving others as members of ourselves that we can begin to really love, forgive or cherish ourselves at all.” (137)
“I am because we are.” (141)
“Life’s too short to be lived in a swirl of perceived self-attribution or rather, life can’t begin to be properly perceived at all when we’re in its throes… all those little distancings add up after a while till we’re too debilitatingly detached from reality to meaningfully see ourselves beautifully at all.” (143)
“the culture we call poetry is human seriousness itself. It’s the work of making all things new, redeeming the time and bodying forth newness of life and living and social possibility.” (174)