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    Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir
    Unavailable
    Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir
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    Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir
    Audiobook5 hours

    Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir

    Published by Hachette Audio

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Kate Braestrup has been married and widowed, betrayed and betrothed, her personal spirituality constantly evolving along the way. How do God and love figure in our everyday lives and bonds with others? In MARRIAGE, AND OTHER ACTS OF CHARITY, she tackles these big questions with stories from her own relationships--romantic and familial, platonic and professional--much as Anne Lamott weaves her spirituality through her tales of parenthood.

    With the same compassion and warmth that made Here If You Need Me a New York Times bestseller, Braestrup engages readers fully, regardless of their path in life. She tells us about teaching sex education for her daughter's eighth-grade class, and the welcome embrace extended toward her adopted nephew from Africa. She introduces the essential concept that charity--the key to all relationships--is a whole-hearted selfless emotion, which is but a hint of God's immense devotion. Kate Braestrup's very human outlook gives anyone seeking to understand human relationships a fresh perspective on what it is to love and be loved.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateJan 13, 2010
    ISBN9781600247804
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Marriage and Other Acts of Charity

    4/5

    53 ratings8 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I hoped this book would discuss the principal of "charity" in marriage, but to me it read like a disconnected memoir with a few comments on meaning of the word "love" thrown in. The author's theology seems uninformed and shallow.
    • 5/5
      Love, loss, religion and faith are woven beautifully into this book. I really enjoy Braestrup's writing and would love to meet her someday. I think this book I'll lend to a few select friends and keep on the shelf to be read again. It was that good.
    • 4/5
      Clear, honest, hard-won pearls of wisdom are scattered throughout this lovely memoir on love and marriage.
    • 4/5
      Many thanks to Nancy White for sending this my way. I thoroughly enjoyed Braestrup's first book Here If You Need Me and hoped she would continue with the insightful and beautiful writing. I was not disappointed.Braestrup is a Unitarian Universalist minister/chaplain who works with the Maine warden service. Tragicially, suddenly widowed in 1996 when her policeman husband was killed in an accident, she was left to raise four children from ages 3-9.This latest book is a testimony of the difficulty of committed, loving relationships. Unflinchingly told with candor, clarity, honesty and poignancy, Braestrup does not gloss over the fact that her marriage was rocky and difficult...AND, she also celebrates that it was also loving and wonderful.This book is packed with pearls of wisdom, including the fact that sometimes loving those we love is the hardest thing we are called to do.The ups and downs, give and take of committed relationship requires a self giving and other directedness that seems impossible to achieve, stumbling along, we learn of love as we follow the dark path, with the hope light is at the end.Highly recommended!!
    • 4/5
      From My Blog...Marriage, mother-adult child relationships, parenting and friendship are a few touchstones in Kate Braestrup's memoir Marriage and Other Acts of Charity. As a minister, Kate has the pleasure to meet with a lot of couples prior to marriage and has learned a lot about love and marriage over the years. According to Kate her desire to minister and her knowledge of marriage stemmed from her first marriage. Drew and Kate loved each other and yet had difficulty communicating their frustrations and fears with one another, which is not uncommon and they were wise enough to seek out counseling. His job as a police officer placed a heavy strain on both of them, causing misplaced anger. During counseling sessions Kate claimed everything was Drew's fault while all her actions were accounted for. What she was not admitting was her love for her husband and the fact she was terrified he would die on the job, instead hiding these fears in anger. Fortunately Kate and Drew managed to change their marriage around before he was killed. Marriage and Other Acts of Kindness is a memoir of her marriage, the good and not so good times, interspersed with relevant quotes ranging from philosophers to the Bible. Kate's memoir does not end with the death of her husband Drew, rather in a way it is a new beginning as Kate becomes an ordained minister and chooses to write openly about the issues that arose after the wedding. Kate gives clear examples of behaviours and when they are good and not so good. Anger for example can come in handy when protecting our young, and unhealthy when misplaced, such as screaming at a loved one because the library closed before they could get there. Kate speaks lovingly of her four children, family, friends and her ministry. While Kate is indeed an ordained minister, her book, Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, is neither preachy nor over the top, but rather an honest, down to earth and witty memoir about the trying times and the joys that came from those times in Kate's life, which she seamlessly weaves into modern day examples of the gospels. One example would be the Valedictorian speech her friend's son made denouncing his family and declaring his true family was Pink Floyd. Kate speaks of her personal life, her marriages, being a widower and returning to the dating scene. Marriage and Other Acts of Charity is a well written and beautiful memoir gently reminding the reader not to take life too seriously or for granted. I found the memoir to be beautiful, uplifting and filled with life lessons and guidance. I would highly recommend Marriage and Other Acts of Charity to any reader, especially those considering marriage
    • 5/5
      A terrific follow-up to "Here When You Need Me." Braestrup is one of those authors who does a fine job of reading her own work - I don't think I'll every "read" one of her books as I can't imagine not checking out the audiobook.
    • 4/5
      I read Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup. I didn't love it.In fact, I felt rather misled. It was nothing like what I expected it to be.I didn't expect religion to be so much a part of it. I expected more about life in general,her work and family. I did get that, with large doses of unexpected religion.It was however a good book. Paradoxical isn't it?Despite myself, I liked the not so religious part.She is an interesting person with an interesting view.This one.. Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir, did not sneak up on me.I knew what I was in for. What was I thinking? Why did I promptly click on this titlewhen the vine program offered it to me to read and review? What was I thinking?I was thinking that forewarned is forearmed. I expected a lot of religion. I was hopingfor more of the other thing. The unique and sort of off center views I experienced in the first book.I got more than that. Or less, if you are talking of the religion, which is of course part of it all.It has to be, as it is part of her.I am here to tell you what I think. I think that if you read and liked So, here it is . What I think. If you read Here If You Need Me and liked it, you will like this book. If you read Here If You Need Me and didn't like it so much, you will like this one more.I think you should read it. There are stories about her friends, her family and even porcupine mating. Sort of.In any case this one was so much more than I expected, I may have to read Here If You Need Me, to make sure I wasn't being prickly as a porcupine myself and maybe a little huffy. I hate huffy.The stories are about love, like, laughing, falling our of airplanes or hoping not to, to be exact.There are melted teapots and weddings and sex. ( yes, SEX ). All are told with humor and some whimsypeppered over it all. It is short, entertaining and light. It is a book to pick up when you are sad.It is also a book to pick up when you are happy. Go figure. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Kate Braestrup is an ordained minister and serves as the chaplain for the Maine Warden Service , which means she ministers to game wardens and others at the site of any outdoor accident that the wardens are called to respond to. Kate wasn’t always religious and in fact was quite vocally against organized religion at one time. Her first marriage was pretty rocky and seemed to be headed for divorce, so she and her husband went for counseling and she came to realize that she really loved her husband but wasn’t doing a good job of showing it. In fact, she was acting on her fear of losing him (he was a police officer) rather than letting her love show.Marriages (hers and those that she has performed for others) made Kate think about love a lot and in Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, Kate Braestrup tells her story and reflects on love. She says there are three kinds of love – eros, which is romantic and sexual love; philos, which is affection and friendship; and agape, which is love that “earnestly desires the wholeness and happiness of the one who is loved.” In this touching memoir, Kate intersperses the story of her adulthood with reflections on marriage and other types of love.When I started Marriage and Other Acts of Charity and discovered that Kate Braestrup is a minister, I wondered if it was going to be a book for me, since I don’t enjoy “preachy” books. I’m happy to tell you that I didn’t find this book to be at all preachy. Instead, it is a quiet, reflective story of someone who is trying to live the best life she can by showing love to others. This book is thoughtful, introspective, funny, and inspiring and it made me cry a bucket of tears. It felt like I was reading a book by an old friend. It made me reflect on what I value in life and think about how I want to treat the people I love. In case you can’t tell, I liked this book a lot!