Reviews
"Wry, poignant, insightful and balanced.... His insights about truth, tradition, choice and empathy arise...". ( Publishers Weekly , July 14, 2003) "His engaging style will help readers clarify religious meaning and...encourage a few to embark on their own pilgrimages..." ( Library Journal , October 1, 2003), Wry, poignant, insightful and balanced, this travelogue is a keen first effort by Harvard Divinity School graduate Levinson, who embarked on a self-imposed pilgrimage of three months and 9,000 miles in a 1994 Nissan "traveling laboratory." Daunted by the scope of his own ambition, Levinson's business cards stated his mission and bolstered himself as the "Project Director" of "God Is: An Oral History of Faith in America." Armed with a cell phone, tape recorder and list of potential contacts, he traversed the landscape, initiating profound conversations in often unlikely places with likely and unlikely subjects such as southwestern U.S. Sikhs, converted Hasidic Jews, Wiccans in the Army, Texas evangelicals and Yorubans in a South Carolina roadside attraction, among nearly 100 others. Levinson's fluid style connects these rapid-fire interludes, beguiling the reader to peer with him into a cultural kaleidoscope of a gloriously pluralized religious landscape. A superb storyteller, Levinson's book lures like the very routes that beckoned him, where way leads on to way, path leads on to path. His insights about truth, tradition, choice and empathy arise in part from the road trip's powerful juxtapositions. For example, because he is a Jew, from the story of Moses he understood the Navajo tribal need to rely on a core of elders for community leadership. Coming to a just conclusion that "there is no going it alone," Levinson's thoughtful adventure proffers much hope and understanding for anyone interested in contemporary American culture. (Sept.) ( Publishers Weekly , July 14, 2003) Levinson, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, recounts his pilgrimage across America in an old Nissan with earthiness, honesty, and optimism. His mission: to talk to people about religion and hear about their faiths. While his own family viewed Judaism-and religion in general-as a hobby that some families choose or a relic that others stash and dust off for special occasions, here he endeavors to show that religion can also be a vessel that funnels history from generation to generation. As his pilgrimage evolves and he gathers lessons along the way (e.g., "Pay attention to the places and people you think you have nothing to learn from. They're trying to tell you something"), the chapters take on a cohesiveness that strangely results from the platitudes and parables that he collects. His engaging style will help readers clarify religious meaning and might even encourage a few to embark on their own pilgrimages, newly assured that inner searching is worthwhile. Recommended for self-help, travel, or contemporary spirituality collections in public libraries and particularly in collections seeking to include religious diversity and books on the place of religion in America. -Leroy Hommerding, Fort Myers Beach PI. Dist., FL ( Library Journal , October 1, 2003)
