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List Price: $19.99 | | Publisher: NavPress
Salesrank: 23823
Released: October 15, 2009 |
| Our Price: $12.36 |
| Used Price: $12.92 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
The most reliable guides of spiritual formation pinpoint solitude and silence as central to the spiritual life. Now Brennan Manning—in his honest, original, and winning way—shares from his own experiences to prompt you into the riches of spending time alone with God at rest in His presence.
Souvenirs of Solitude is a genuine appeal for you to find rest in God as you develop a lifestyle of worship and surrender. Discover the peace that comes with a relationship with the Almighty.
Includes an eight-day retreat guide that provides stimulating promptings for your own meditation during solitude.
Souvenirs of Solitude: Finding Rest in Abba's Embrace Reviews:
Recommended to Those Looking for a Rich Devotional 
2009-12-08 - Beloved author Brennan Manning is known for his thoughtful, challenging books, including RUTHLESS TRUST and THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL. His longtime fans will recognize SOUVENIRS OF SOLITUDE as a second edition of a work originally published in 1979, which offers a collection of Manning's thoughts from that era. Many of the themes that he has been teaching for more than 40 years are expressed with exuberance and exhilaration, one of which is simply God's boundless love for us.
Manning acknowledges that silence and solitude are treasured commodities in life, and notes that his restless self only discovers peace when he finds his rest in God. Yet convincing others of this truth has proven an uphill battle. He recognizes that part of his need for alone time can be attributed to his personality and describes himself as an "introvert-intuitive, feeler-perceiver type." As a result, one of Manning's primary needs is simply to be alone. He writes:
"As a hungry man needs food and a thirsty man water, I need solitude --- time to achieve a state of peace and recollection from which I can function and give to others what I was meant to in the personal plan of God for me."
Yet despite this need, Manning says he wrestled with feeling guilt. After all, isn't alone time just a way to skirt responsibility? Waste time? Embrace idleness? What he discovered was that the alone time with God is time to be treasured. The moments of silence and solitude reveal the love story of his passion for God. By revisiting these moments with God, Manning draws on a rich well of spiritual lessons, insights from God, and instances when he heard God's voice echo in his life.
SOUVENIRS OF SOLITUDE is a collection of these moments. Most of the memories (or souvenirs as he calls them) are only a few pages long, allowing the book to be used as a devotional as each of the short chapters ends with a prayer-filled poem. Chapters include "The Beauty of the Eucharistic Liturgy," "Hopeful or Wishful Thinking," and "Christmas Reflections at O'Hare." In a particularly insightful chapter, "Good Humor," Manning challenges readers to reflect on their own disposition on life and notes that a zealous and humorless evangelist can cause others to want to avoid religion altogether:
"Through good humor, a Christian triumphs over that subtle form of egotism that would make him pose as a martyr or at least a victim that makes him want to be noticed, consoled, or placed on a pedestal. And it makes community life richer and more delightful."
Such gentle reminders line the pages of SOUVENIRS OF SOLITUDE. Manning draws from life, literature and scripture to illustrate his message. Though some will long for him to go into more depth on some of the topics, most will enjoy the brevity. Fans will be glad to see this second edition of the book released and find themselves challenged by its thoughts and reflections. Recommended to those looking for a rich devotional.
--- Reviewed by Margaret Oines
Irresistable Grace 
2009-12-07 - Brennan Manning is a master at comforting the beatin and battered with the grace of the gospel message. There is nothing more soothing than resting in the loving arms of our Father and His finished work!
review Souvenirs of Solitude
2009-11-21 - Souvenirs of Solitude, Brennan Manning writes about the importance of meeting God in solitude. Brennan reminds us how important it is to be alone and just spend time with God. When is the last time you spent a couple of hours fully focused on communing with the Creator of the Universe, or how about a whole day? In the back of the book Brennan gives us some great suggestions for time alone with our Lord and Savior through solitude.
Brennan says these are the times that our Heavenly Father (Abba, Daddy) lavishes us with his unrelenting love. These are also times of refreshment.
"When I am able to disengage myself from others and allow the Lord to liberate me from an unhealthy dependence on people," Manning says, "I can exist more for them, listen more attentively, love more unselfishly, speak more compassionately, play more playfully, take myself less seriously, and become more aware that my face is bright with laughter in the midst of a game I thoroughly enjoy".
The chapters are short, mostly 3 or 4 pages with a prayer or poem, making this book a great resource for your devotional, and contemplative time with God.
Brennan is a great writer, a reformed alcoholic, a priest, someone who loves God and hopes to help others find that God loves His Creation and that God wants more than anything else to be in relationship with you and me. He loves us in spite of what we have done and that is always the theme of what Brennan writes.
Here are just a few of my thoughts and quotes from Brennan.
"Fasting is a cry of the whole body-person, a yearning for the justice of God to be revealed"
"Physical fasting from food is the joining of the body to the spirits hunger for God"
"the mission of the church is preaching the gospel to all creatures, inviting them to repent and find salvation."
"Failure to act on the gospel imperative to evangelize has resulted in holding to the form of Christianity while denying its power."
"War, loneliness, world hunger, abortion, R rooted in mans rebellion. Man must submit to faith in Jesus Christ & repent."
It is a great book and for those who are familiar with Brennan and have loved his other writings, you will be pleased.
Grate book
2009-11-19 - I got this book for my moms birthday, and she loves it.
So I would highly recommend this book for any one wanting to get closer to God.
Vintage Manning
2009-11-17 - In Souvenirs and Solitude, Brennan Manning reminds us of the importance of meeting God in the void. Of taking time to be by ourselves and shutting everything off. It is during these times that our Heavenly Father lavishes us with his unrelenting love. These times are also times of refreshment. "When I am able to disengage myself from others and allow the Lord to liberate me from an unhealthy dependence on people," Manning says, "I can exist more for them, listen more attentively, love more unselfishly, speak more compassionately, play more playfully, take myself less seriously, and become more aware that my face is bright with laughter in the midst of a game I thoroughly enjoy". The goal, then, of silence and solitude is to center ourselves in God in order to give ourselves away to others. Only when we are full of Christ are we able to accomplish this selfless act of love.
First published in 1979, the stories and insights Manning illuminates are as effective and as relevant today as when they were first recorded. The relatively short chapters all stand alone nicely, making this book a sort of devotional. As a whole, though, the theme of God's love for us permeates every page. Souvenirs and Solitude gives readers an excellent representation of Manning's ability to make you laugh on one page and cry the next. Readers of Manning will be familiar with his honesty and candor, powerfully evident, for example, in chapter fifteen, "One For The Road." As a recovering alcoholic, Manning shares his gut-wrenching experience at a program and his struggle with "what could have been."
Punctuating each chapter is a poem by the late Miss Sue Garmon. Simple, yet, thoughtful, Garmon puts words to the thoughts in our head after reading what Manning has written. A perfect compliment. Ultimately, Manning and Garmon provide us with a tool to help us turn from ourselves to our Father and then, to others; an experience that is sorely needed in these days of mass information overload. Let us heed their advice and take time out to listen and be refreshed by our Lord.
